Darfur residents flee as Sudan battles intensify: witnesses

GEDAREF, Sudan: Fighting between the forces of Sudan´s rival general rocked on Monday the capital Khartoum and a major city in the western Darfur region, witnesses told AFP, displacing thousands within days.

Residents of violence-wracked Nyala, Sudan´s second city and state capital of South Darfur, awoke to “the sound of artillery strikes”, witnesses said. Hundreds had on Sunday fled paramilitary attacks in the city as fighting intensified in recent days in the restive region bordering Chad.

“The violence has displaced an estimated 20,000 people from several neighbourhoods” of Nyala, according to the UN´s humanitarian agency OCHA. It warned that “the clashes are currently hampering any transport of aid into Nyala from East Darfur”.

Darfur and the capital Khartoum have been in the throes of nearly four months of fighting between Sudan´s army led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

“Despite difficulties in accessing the hospital in Nyala due to the bombardments, we received on Sunday 66 injuries and six deceased,” a medical source at a local facility said.