On 20 July, a pro-Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Telegram channel posted a video showing a skyscraper on fire. The post stated that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) bombed the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) tower in Sudan’s capital city Khartoum. However, the SAF’s claim that the RSF was responsible for the damage has been contested. Sudan Witness verified the footage (figure 1), which showed an active fire and smoke plumes coming from the tower and was filmed from a moving vehicle on Manshiya Bridge. Analysis of Planet and Sentinel satellite imagery shows a smoke plume coming from the NTC Tower on 20 July.
Flash report: Khartoum’s NTC tower up in flames
2 min read
Sudan Witness
Summary
On July 20, a pro-Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Telegram channel posted a video showing the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) tower in Khartoum on fire.
The NTC tower is the tallest building in Sudan at 29 storeys, completed in 2009. It houses government telecommunication offices.
The incident is the fifth instance of damage to Khartoum’s skyline verified by Sudan Witness since the start of the conflict.
The damage may cause minor disruption to government operations, but did not have a direct negative effect on the country’s telecommunication infrastructure at the time.
Figure 1: Geolocation of footage showing the NTC Tower on fire [15.59912994,32.59068508] Source: Google Earth and Telegram
The Tower is located at the Buri Al-Lamap East neighbourhood, 300 metres northwest of the Manshia Bridge that connects Khartoum to the East Nile. According to a control map published by Sudan War Monitor, both Manshiya Bridge and the Buri Al-Lamap neighbourhood have been under RSF control since the first month of the conflict. CIR has verified footage of RSF presence on the Manshiya Bridge in that period and has not seen any evidence of changes of control in this area since the control map was published. Both the RSF and SAF have been blamed for the incident. The pro-SAF outlet Sudan News attributed the fire to the RSF in a tweet posted on the day of the incident, while the RSF posted a statement to X accusing the SAF for carrying out an airstrike on the tower. CIR could not confirm either claim.
Figure 2: Satellite imagery showing a smoke plume appearing over the site of the NTC Tower in Khartoum [15.601639, 32.586735] Source: Left Planet, and Right Sentinel
The incident is the fifth instance of damage to Khartoum’s skyline verified by Sudan Witness, including the GNPOC tower, which suffered significant fire damage on 16 September 2023. According to Skyscraperpage, the NTC tower is the tallest building in Sudan at 29 storeys and was completed in 2009. It accommodates office space for the Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Transformation (MTDT), and the Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority (TPRA, previously National Telecommunication Corporation).
Although the damage to the building may cause minor disruption to the government operations, CIR assessed that the incident did not have a direct negative effect on the telecommunication infrastructure of the country at the time of writing. Since the start of the war, communication blackouts across the country have been commonplace, restricting people’s access to basic services and preventing user-generated content from being shared to social media.