Heavy fighting in Sudan's capital as food aid needs grow

Heavy air strikes pounded southern areas of Sudan's capital on Thursday as clashes flared near a military camp, witnesses said, in fighting that has displaced nearly 1 million people and left residents of Khartoum struggling to survive.

Airstrikes by the army targeting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were heard across several residential neighbourhoods in southern Khartoum, including near the Taiba camp, while a police reserve force aligned with the army battled the RSF on the ground, the witnesses said.

Strikes could be heard across the Nile in the Sharg Al Nil district as well.

The army has mainly used air power and heavy artillery as it tries to drive back the RSF, which spread out across large areas of Khartoum and its adjoining cities of Bahri and Omdurman across the Nile after fighting erupted on April 15.

"The bombardment and the clashes don't stop and there's no way to flee from our homes. All our money is gone," said Salah El Din Othman, a 35-year-old resident of Khartoum.

"Even if we leave our houses again we're afraid that gangs will loot everything in the house … we are living a nightmare of fear and poverty."

Violence has also flared in Darfur in western Sudan and in North Kordofan State, and other parts of the country, but the power struggle has been focused on the capital.

Both army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, are thought to have remained in Khartoum throughout the fighting.

On Wednesday the army released a video showing Burhan dressed in army fatigues greeting troops at what appeared to be the army headquarters in central Khartoum.

According to latest estimates, more than 840,000 people have been displaced within Sudan and over 220,000 have fled to neighbouring countries.

The UN World Food Programme said it was ramping up its operations across at least six states in Sudan to assist 4.9 million vulnerable people, as well as assisting those fleeing to Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.

"The fighting in Sudan is devastating lives and livelihoods and forcing people to flee their homes with nothing but the clothes they are wearing," WFP East Africa director Michael Dunford said in a statement.

Medical aid agency MSF said that on Tuesday armed men had broken into its warehouse in Khartoum and taken two cars filled with supplies.