Hundreds of people, including dozens of children, have been killed in Sudan in recent days, according to civilian witnesses, medical workers and the United Nations, as fierce clashes have escalated in an internal conflict that is approaching its third year.
The war between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has unleashed a wave of devastation across Sudan, killing tens of thousands of people, forcing millions to flee their homes and pushing parts of the vast nation deeper into famine.
“Everywhere you look, death is near,” Mustafa Ahmed, 28, a painter who lives in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, said in a phone interview.
He and his family, he said, were very worried about the continued shelling and were devising ways to leave the city. “I am working hard to leave and keep my family safe from dying,” he said.
In the capital and adjoining cities, the region of Darfur in the west, and across several other states, the ruinous war is escalating as the warring parties strive to solidify their territorial claims, regain new ones and secure strategic military and civilian sites.
The conflict has been marked by gross atrocities and ethnically motivated killings, prompting investigations from the International Criminal Court and accusations of genocide from the United States.
In recent weeks, the army has amped its offensive to retake significant parts of the capital, which it lost when the war started in April 2023. The conflict has slowly been heating up since late last year after the end of the rainy season. With the escalating deaths, injuries and attacks on civilians, activists have been calling on the United Nations to deploy a peacekeeping mission in the country.
In January, the army captured a strategic oil refinery north of Khartoum and broke the siege on its main headquarters in central Khartoum.
The army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, visited the facility days later, and promised to remove the paramilitary forces from “every corner of Sudan.”
But even as army officers celebrated their victory, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights accused fighters and militia allied with them of summarily executing at least 18 people in the newly liberated areas.
Fighting has also escalated in Omdurman, which is home to about 2.4 million people and is Sudan’s second-largest city. Sudan’s Health Ministry said that at least 54 people were killed and 158 others injured on Saturday when the paramilitary forces shelled a busy market there.
Just days later, on Tuesday, the ministry said that six people were killed and 38 others were wounded when mortar shells hit a main hospital that was already treating people who had been injured in the fighting.
Fierce clashes have also ensued this week in South Kordofan, which shares a border with South Sudan, and Blue Nile states, where millions were already facing dire humanitarian crises.
In Kadugli city in South Kordofan, the latest infighting has left at least 80 people dead, the United Nations said this week.
Asim Ahmed Musa, who lives in the city, said many people did not have access to adequate food or medicine. Workers were unable to receive their salaries, he said, and many families had limited cash, especially after Sudan introduced new bank notes last month.
Clashes have continued all over the city, he said, and the thud of shelling and gunfire had forced many people to hunker down. “The citizens are currently living in a state of panic,” he said. “People are scared.”
The western region of Darfur has also been the site of intense clashes recently, an agonizing reprise for an area that experienced a genocide just over two decades ago.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the paramilitary forces, or the R.S.F., and their allies have ratcheted up attacks in the region and consolidated their control over major cities.
They also laid siege to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, where they have been clashing with the army and its allies. An attack on the only functioning hospital in El Fasher in late January killed 70 people and injured 19 others, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization.
Fighting across the region has also displaced hundreds of families, according to the United Nations, pushing some of them to flee across the border into Chad.
The latest conflict has also not spared children. At least 40 children were killed in just three days this month, UNICEF said this week.
“As the conflict persists, children’s lives and futures hang in the balance and for their sakes, the violence must end immediately,” the UNICEF Sudan representative, Annmarie Swai, said in a statement.
For now, the warring sides insist that they can ultimately quash the other.
Despite incurring losses in the capital, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the paramilitary leader, delivered a recorded video speech last week in which he sought to restore sagging morale among his forces and promised to seize fresh territory.
“We must think of what we intend to take,” he said. “Look forward and not backward.”
