Fierce fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shook the capital Khartoum, as disease and malnutrition threatened the rising number of displaced people.
Reporting from Omdurman – Khartoum’s twin city – Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said the fighting started in the early hours of Sunday in the northern part of the city.
“People in the area say that the RSF tried to attack Sudanese army positions, and this is near an army air base where the fighter jets that have been targeting the RSF have been taking off,” she said.
Air strikes were launched in northern parts of the capital, Morgan reported, and heavy artillery was used in the city’s east.
“The RSF said it downed a Sudanese army fighter jet in the city of Bahri,” she said. Bahri, also known as Khartoum North, is one of three cities that make up Greater Khartoum.
Battles since April 15 between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF have killed nearly 3,000 people.
Another 2.2 million have been forced from their homes inside the country with almost 645,000 fleeing across borders for safety, according to the International Organization for Migration.
A record 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian aid and protection, the UN says.
“The situation is grave,” the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said in a statement detailing the hardships of displaced Sudanese stuck in nine camps in the White Nile state which borders South Sudan.
<<Aljazeera>>