Aid hub Port Sudan faces thirst, dozens feared dead after Arbaat Dam burst

Damaged trucks buried in mud after the collapse of the Arbaat Dam, 40km north of Port Sudan, on 25 August 2024. (AFP)

Critical aid hub Port Sudan faces water shortages after the collapse of the Arbaat Dam.Dozens are feared to have been killed when it burst under unusual rains, but no casualty count is available yet.Infrastructure has been neglected amid Sudan’s civil war.

Surging waters burst through a dam and wiped out at least five villages and left an unknown number of people dead in eastern Sudan, officials said on Monday, devastating a region already reeling from months of civil war.

Torrential rains caused floods that overwhelmed the Arbaat Dam on Sunday just 40km north of Port Sudan, the de facto national capital and base for the government, diplomats, aid agencies and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

“The area is unrecognisable. The electricity and water pipes are destroyed,” Omar Eissa Haroun, head of the water authority for Red Sea state, said in a WhatsApp message to staff.

He said he had seen the bodies of gold miners and pieces of their equipment wrecked in the deluge, and likened the disaster to the devastation in the eastern Libyan city of Derna in September last year when storm waters burst dams, swept away buildings and killed thousands.

On the road to Arbaat on Monday a Reuters reporter saw people burying a man and covering his grave with driftwood to try to prevent it from being washed away in mudslides.

The dam was the main source of water for Port Sudan, which is home to the country’s main Red Sea port and working airport, and receives most of the country’s much-needed aid deliveries.

“The city is threatened with thirst in the coming days,” the Sudanese Environmentalists Association said in a statement.

Crumbling infrastructure

Officials said the dam had started crumbling and silt had been building during days of heavy rain that had come much earlier than usual.

Sudan’s dams, roads and bridges were already in disrepair before the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Forces began in April 2023.

Both sides have since funnelled the bulk of their resources into the conflict, leaving infrastructure badly neglected.

Some people had fled their flooded homes in five devastated villages and headed to the mountains where they were now stranded, the health ministry said.

On Monday, the government’s rainy season task force said 132 people had been killed in floods across the country, up from 68 two weeks ago. At least 118 000 people have been displaced by the rains this year, according to United Nations agencies.

The conflict in Sudan began when competition between the army and the RSF, who had previously shared power after staging a coup, flared into open warfare.

The two sides had been seeking to protect their power and extensive economic interests as the international community promoted a plan for a transition towards civilian rule.

Overlapping efforts in pursuit of a ceasefire, including Saudi- and US-led talks in Jeddah, have not eased the fighting and half of the 50 million population lack sufficient food.

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