Iran asks Sudan to build permanent naval base in Red Sea

Iran had earlier tried to pressure Sudan to allow it to launch a permanent naval base in the Red Sea.

Sudan rejected Iran's request to open a naval base on its Red Sea coast, despite that Tehran is sending arms and drones to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in its civil war with the Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, Albawaba reports citing the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Nonetheless, Ahmad Hasan Mohamed, an intelligence adviser to Sudan’s military leader of a helicopter-carrying warship if it got the okay to build a naval base on the Red Sea coast, but Sudan rejected the offer.

Mohamed, the senior Sudanese intelligence official, said that Iran's goal to build the naval base is to keep an eye on maritime traffic to and from the Suez Canal and Israel.

A civil war has been going on in Sudan since April 2023 till this moment between two rival factions of the military government of Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under Hemedti.

According to the United Nations report, at least 14,600 Sudanese have been killed and 26,000 others injured. However, the "actual figures are undoubtedly much higher."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk stated on March 1: "Sudan has become a living nightmare. Almost half of the population – 25 million people – are in urgent need of food and medical aid. Some 80 per cent of hospitals have been put out of service."