Sudanese army destroys paramilitary air defence systempublished at 12:13 GMT
12:13 GMT
Peter Mwai and Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify
Image source, X/Sudan News Agency
Video has emerged showing the moment a Sudanese army drone struck an air defence system used by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Kordofan region of southern Sudan earlier this week.
Although images claiming to show the destroyed Chinese-made FK-2000 system first appeared on social media on 10 February, the video published yesterday by the state news agency, tells us more about the attack.
In the last frames of the video we can make out the FK-2000 – its launching and transport platforms, plus its radars – before the camera cuts out.
We were able to match the long straight dirt track near a river bed, a small group of houses and what looks like a reservoir so we could confirm the strike was 3 miles (5km) west of al-Debeibat – a town people have mentioned on Sudanese social media as being close to the attack.
This puts it in the heart of the fighting between the government’s forces and RSF in the region. Both sides have been fighting a civil war across Sudan for almost three years.
And we can be confident the attack was on 10 February because satellite images from that day show scrub burning at the same place.