Sudan war intensifies with Khartoum air strikes, heavy Darfur casualties

Air strikes killed or wounded more than two dozen civilians in Khartoum on Saturday, a citizens' group said, as medics reported hundreds of wounded fleeing Sudan's western Darfur region in worsening violence of a two-month war.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) claimed to have shot down a Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) fighter plane. A military source, not authorised to speak to the press, told AFP anonymously that a plane did go down but blamed a "malfunction".

The SAF, commanded by Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, has since April 15 been battling the RSF, headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, after the two fell out in a power struggle.

Witnesses said air strikes have intensified in the capital over the past few days.

On Saturday, warplanes again struck residential districts of Khartoum, killing "17 civilians, including five children," according to a citizens' support committee.

Residents had earlier reported air strikes around the city's southern Yarmouk district -- home to a weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex where the RSF claimed "full control" in early June.

ALSO READ:

• Record 110 million people now forcibly displaced worldwide: UN

• UAE strongly condemns storming of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain embassies in Khartoum

The citizen's committee added that 11 other civilians were wounded but AFP was not immediately able to independently confirm the committee's figures.

In a video published on Friday on the army's Facebook page, deputy army chief Yasser Atta warned civilians to keep away from houses where the RSF are located because the army "will attack them at any time".

Since battles began, the death toll across the country has topped 2,000, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project said.

Hundreds of kilometres west of Khartoum, up to 1,100 have been killed in the West Darfur state capital El Geneina alone, according to the US State Department.

Medics said on Saturday they were overwhelmed by the hundreds of wounded fleeing Sudan's Darfur region, which has become an increasing focus of global concern.

The dead have included West Darfur Governor Khamis Abdullah Abakar, killed after he criticised the paramilitaries in a Wednesday television interview. The RSF denied responsibility.

"We are overwhelmed in the operating theatre. We urgently need more beds and more staff," said Seybou Diarra, a physician and project coordinator in Adre, Chad, for the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity.

"As violence rages in West Darfur, wounded people are coming in waves" to the hospital in Adre, just over the border about 20 kilometres west of El Geneina, the MSF statement said.

More than 600 patients, most with gunshot wounds, arrived at the facility over a three-day period — more than half of them on Friday, it said.

Claire Nicolet, MSF's head of emergency programmes, cited "reports of intensifying and large-scale attacks this week".

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at least 149,000 people have fled from Darfur into Chad.