Battles Continue in Sudan, Humanitarian Situation Worsens

Khartoum residents said they woke up on Sunday shaken with more shelling and clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces. At the same time a relief organization warned that the ongoing conflict threatens to spread diseases and malnutrition among children in the camps for the displaced.

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Witnesses in the suburb of Omdurman, northwest of Khartoum, told Africanews that "violent clashes with various types of weapons took place in the areas of Hay al-Arab, the popular market and al-Arda."

Fighter planes also flew over the capital and its suburbs, according to residents.

This comes the day after the Support Forces launched an attack on the Armored Corps Command in the capital, while areas in northern Khartoum were subjected to artillery shelling, according to witnesses.

Since April 15, the war between Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has killed nearly 3,000 people and displaced 2.2 million within the country, with another 645,000 fleeing across borders, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The battles are concentrated in the capital and areas close to it, in addition to the Darfur region in the west of the country, where the United Nations warned that what it is witnessing may amount to "crimes against humanity" and take on ethnic dimensions.

Chad, on the border with Darfur, received thousands of people fleeing from the region, whose area is equivalent to a quarter of the size of Sudan.

Since the outbreak of the conflict, the Darfur region has witnessed some of the worst acts of violence, accompanied by humanitarian and sexual violations, ethnic-based killings, and widespread looting, according to what humanitarian organizations and witnesses confirm.

On Saturday, the government “Unit to Combat Violence Against Women and Children” reported that new cases of sexual violence against women had been recorded in Khartoum and Darfur, especially in the city of El Geneina, the center of West Darfur state.

"The total number of sexual assault cases in Khartoum reached 42, while 21 conflict-related sexual violence cases were recorded in El Geneina,". The unit posted on its Facebook account, noting that most of the reports and testimonies were recorded against members of the Rapid Support Forces.

The unit "expressed its deep concern about the growing phenomenon of ethnic targeting of women and girls."

The current events in Darfur brought back bitter memories of the bloody violence that it witnessed over two decades, starting in 2003, in a conflict that left about 300,000 dead and 2.5 million people displaced, according to the United Nations.

Even before the outbreak of the current conflict, Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world. Almost 25 million people, more than half of the population, needed humanitarian assistance and protection, according to the United Nations.