KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitaries have ordered civilians to vacate homes in the capital’s south, several residents said on Sunday, as fighting between the forces of rival generals raged in the western Darfur region.
“Members of the Rapid Support Forces told me I had 24 hours to leave the area,” said Khartoum resident Fawzy Radwan.
He had been guarding his family’s home since fighting began in the city more than three months ago between the RSF and the regular army.
The war between army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has killed at least 3,900 people, according to a conservative estimate, and displaced some 3.5 million.
Much of the fighting has occurred in densely populated neighborhoods of Khartoum, pushing 1.7 million residents to flee and forcing the millions who remain to shelter from the crossfire in their homes, rationing water and electricity.
Hundreds of residents were being evicted from southern Khartoum’s Jabra neighborhood, according to residents on Sunday.
Jabra and the nearby area of Sahafa are home to the army artillery corps as well as an RSF base used by Daglo.
“They told us this is a military zone now and they don’t want civilians around,” said resident Nasser Hussein.
The RSF has been accused of rampant looting and of forcibly evicting people from their homes since the war began on April 15.
Along with Khartoum, some of the worst violence has been in the conflict-scarred region of Darfur, where allegations of war crimes have sparked a new investigation by the International Criminal Court.
Again on Sunday, clashes in the town of Nyala — the capital of South Darfur state and Sudan’s second-biggest city — sent bombs falling on civilian neighborhoods, witnesses said.
In the Central Darfur state capital Zalingei, the army “killed 16 rebels and captured 14, including an officer,” a military source said on Sunday, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Days of “bombs repeatedly falling in our homes” have sent civilians fleeing from Nyala, according to Issa Adam, who spoke P from a displacement camp.
Many are “now out in the open during the rainy reason,” he said.
Mohammed Khater had also fled Nyala with his children after bombs killed his neighbors.
From a nearby camp, he told AFP that “no organization has reached us, and we’re scared of the fighting reaching us.”
Over 2.6 million people have been displaced within Sudan since the war began, and more than 800,000 others have fled across borders.
