Sudan starts to resume train operation after hiatus due to war

Khartoum, Dec 28 (IANS) Sudan has resumed the operation of the train linking Port Sudan in the eastern Red Sea State with Atbara in the northern River Nile State, following a hiatus due to the ongoing civil conflict, Sudanese authorities said.

The train set off from Port Sudan on Thursday evening and arrived in Atbara on Friday, marking the first railway line in Sudan to resume operation since the onset of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in mid-April 2023.

Sudan's Transport Minister Abu Bakr Abu Al-Qasim Abdalla said the work would continue to resume the operation on other railway lines.

"This is just the beginning, and we are working to resume train operation services on all railway lines that connect different cities," the Minister said.

According to Musa Al-Qom Al-Jahdi, director general of Sudan Railways Corporation, there will be a train trip every two weeks between Atbara and Port Sudan. The train has a capacity of 432 passengers across six carriages and travels a distance of approximately 600 km in 12 hours, Xinhua news agency reported.

The ongoing civil war has significantly impacted the railway sector in Sudan, leading to a halt to operations of almost 80 per cent of passenger and freight trains, as well as the looting of stations and wooden railway sleepers, according to Sudan Railways Corporation.

At least 20,000 people had been killed, but the death toll was likely much higher as the ongoing fighting and the collapse of the health system made updating or verifying casualty figures impossible.

According to the United Nations, the war had also prompted the world's largest displacement crisis, with more than 11 million people displaced to refugee camps and neighbouring countries. The UN also said in early October that famine and the outbreak of diseases like cholera had further exacerbated an already desperate situation.