The state health ministry in Khartoum reported on Saturday that at least 22 people were killed and numerous more were hurt in an airstrike by the Sudanese army on western Omdurman as the conflict between the nation’s military factions entered its 12th week.
While the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soon took control of Khartoum and its sister cities Omdurman and Bahri after fighting erupted on April 15, the army responded with air and artillery strikes.
The violence, for which no mediation efforts have so far been successful, threatens to pull the country into a wider civil war, attracting other internal and external actors in the East African nation located between the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and the Red Sea.
Tensions between the two sides had risen in the months preceding the war over the chain of command and the integration of their forces under a new democratic transition.
According to the federal health ministry, at least 1,133 people have been killed in the conflict, which has erupted in the capital as well as the Kordofan and Darfur areas, igniting ethnic strife in West Darfur state.
More than 2.9 million people have been displaced, with roughly 700,000 fleeing to neighboring countries. More than half of the capital has been spent.
According to aid organizations, it has also resulted in alarming numbers of rapes and kidnappings of women and girls.
In recent days, fighting has centered on Omdurman, as the western half of the city serves as a vital supply route for the RSF to send reinforcements in from Darfur, its power base.
Airstrike has also focused on the country’s state broadcasting complex in eastern Omdurman, including overnight on Friday. Other nocturnal attacks occurred in southern and eastern Khartoum.
According to a Facebook post by the army, special troops killed 20 ‘rebel soldiers’ and destroyed their weapons.
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