- Escalating Clashes and Attacks in Khartoum
- Destruction of Key Structures and Landmarks in Central Khartoum
- Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis and Displacement in Sudan
Witnesses reported that the Sudanese capital was engulfed in flames on Sunday and that paramilitary forces attacked the army headquarters for the second consecutive day as the conflict entered its sixth month.
Witnesses told AFP on Sunday from Khartoum that “clashes are occurring around the army headquarters with various types of weapons,” while others reported fighting in the city of El-Obeid, 350 kilometers south.
Saturday’s intensified fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) resulted in the burning of several important structures in central Khartoum.
In AFP-verified social media posts, users shared footage of flames consuming Khartoum skyline monuments, including the Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company Tower — a conical structure with glass facades that had become a symbol of the city.
Users lamented Khartoum, a husk of its former self, in posts depicting structures with blown-out windows and charred or bullet-riddled walls that continued to burn.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project estimates that over 7,500 people have died since army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, went to war on 15 April.
2.8 million people have fled Khartoum’s densely populated neighbourhoods due to air strikes, artillery fire, and street clashes.
The millions of residents who remained in the city awoke on Sunday to clouds of smoke obscuring the skyline and the sound of explosives and gunfire exploding in the capital.
The army is also targeting RSF bases with artillery fire, witnesses told AFP on Sunday from the Mayo district of southern Khartoum.
According to the United Nations, air strikes on a market in Mayo last week killed at least 51 people, making it one of the deadliest single attacks of the conflict.
Khartoum and western Darfur have seen the most bloodshed. Where racially motivated attacks by the RSF and allied militias have prompted the International Criminal Court to reopen its investigation into potential war crimes.
In the city of El-Obeid, witnesses reported artillery fire exchanged between the army and the RSF on Sunday. There has also been combat in the southern Kordofan region, where witnesses reported artillery fire exchanged between the army and the RSF on Sunday.
