Khartoum the capital city has experienced intense fighting between rival military factions in Sudan, a crisis that has displaced many families and the entire economy of the state.
Residents of Sudan’s capital Khartoum and the important southern city of El-Obeid told AFP that on Thursday they saw airstrikes, street fights, and artillery fire.
A resident of El-Obeid, 350 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of Khartoum, claimed that artillery fire had targeted paramilitary bases of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
read more: Sudanese army declined participation in peace talk
Another resident of El-Obeid, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, claimed that army jets were attacking paramilitaries, who were retaliating with anti-aircraft fire.
Three air raids were reportedly conducted in the south of Khartoum early on Thursday, according to witnesses.
One of the locals told AFP that the explosions were “terrifying.”
The army charged the RSF on Wednesday with using a drone to target a residential area in Khartoum, resulting in “14 people dead and 15 other injuries.”
At least 13 civilian deaths were reported by residents to AFP.
Since April, more than a million people have been displaced as a result of the power struggle between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, his former deputy and the RSF commander.
Soon after an audio recording of Daglo was made public on Tuesday, Burhan made an uncommon video appearance.
A pistol and an automatic rifle can be seen being carried by the army chief in the brief video clip, which shows him greeting the top officers of the army while at the army headquarters.
In a brief video from the early stages of the battle, Daglo was last spotted.
The RSF commander, however, has released several audio recordings since April, the most recent of which was on Monday and in which he told the Sudanese people that he was prepared for war but was willing to “choose peace.”
According to Daglo, his allies would fight until “victory or martyrdom.”
The RSF chief also brought up the vast western region of Darfur, which was the scene of a bloody conflict in the early 2000s and has since experienced the worst violence in the history of the current conflict.
According to the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan, a new investigation into alleged war crimes in Darfur has been launched.
In Darfur, where 300,000 people have been killed in fighting since 2003, he issued a warning against “allowing history to repeat itself.”
