Khartoum- The Sudanese capital was ablaze on Sunday as paramilitary forces launched another assault on the army headquarters for the second consecutive day. Eyewitness accounts describe an escalating conflict that has endured for half a year.
“Witnesses have reported clashes in the vicinity of the army headquarters, with the use of various types of weaponry,” stated individuals who spoke to AFP on Sunday from Khartoum. Simultaneously, reports of hostilities emerged from El-Obeid, located 350 kilometers to the south.
The confrontations between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated notably on Saturday, culminating in the incineration of several prominent structures in central Khartoum.
Social media posts, verified by AFP, shared harrowing footage of iconic landmarks in the Khartoum skyline consumed by flames. Among these was the Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company Tower, a conical structure with glass facades that had come to symbolize the city itself.
Online mourners lamented the desolation of Khartoum, its once-vibrant buildings now reduced to smoldering ruins, their windows shattered, walls charred, and scarred by bullet holes.
Since the onset of hostilities on April 15, pitting army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy and RSF commander, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, nearly 7,500 lives have been tragically lost, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The conflict has also uprooted over five million people, including 2.8 million who have sought refuge from relentless air strikes, artillery barrages, and urban combat within Khartoum’s densely populated neighborhoods.
The residents who remain in the city awoke on Sunday to an ominous sight, as clouds of smoke obscured the once-familiar skyline, punctuated by the jarring sounds of explosions and gunfire echoing across the capital.
Witnesses from the Mayo district in southern Khartoum reported hearing resounding blasts, revealing the intensity of the conflict. Artillery fire targeted RSF installations in the area.
Just last week, the United Nations documented a devastating airstrike that claimed the lives of at least 51 individuals in a market within the Mayo district, marking one of the deadliest single incidents of the ongoing war.
The epicenter of the violence has predominantly centered in Khartoum and the western Darfur region. Ethnically-motivated attacks perpetrated by the RSF and allied militias have prompted renewed scrutiny by the International Criminal Court into potential war crimes. Additional skirmishes have erupted in the southern Kordofan region, where witnesses again reported artillery duels between the army and the RSF, this time in the city of El-Obeid.
By AFP
