Residents of Khartoum had woken up on Sunday morning to sounds of artillery and rocket fire, some hours after an air strike in the city’s south shot down about 20 civilians including two children, according to reports by Sudanese activists.
The death toll from the aerial attack in southern Khartoum had risen to 20 civilian deaths, according to a statement by the neighborhood’s resistance committee.
They are among many volunteer groups that used to organise pro-democracy demonstrations and now provide assistance to families caught in the crossfire between the army and paramilitary fighters.
A neighbourhood resistance committee, one of the many volunteer groups, that prior to the conflict, organised pro-democracy demonstrations had released a statement, revealing that the victims had included two children, and had warned that a lot more fatalities had gone unrecorded, as those bodies could not be moved to the hospital because they had been badly burnt or torn to pieces in the bombing.
Since this conflict began between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15 2023, about 5,000 people have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project estimates.
Over half of Sudan’s 48 million citizens now require humanitarian help and protection. Six million people out of the above figure are only a step away from famine, according to the United Nations.
The insecurity, looting and bureaucratic obstacles notwithstanding, the UN has announced that it has been able to get help to millions of those requiring them.
The war has internally displaced approximately 3.8 million people, according to the UN stats, while another million have travelled across borders, into neighbouring countries.