WAD MADANI: Fighting between two rival generals has spread to cities in war-ravaged Sudan's south, witnesses said Friday, raising concerns for hundreds of thousands who have fled violence in the Darfur region.
The vast western region has seen some of the worst bloodshed since the conflict erupted on April 15 between the army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Battles resumed late Thursday in the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher, witnesses said, disrupting nearly two months of calm in the densely populated city that has become a shelter from the shelling, looting, rapes and summary executions reported in other parts of Darfur.
"This is the biggest gathering of civilians displaced in Darfur, with 600,000 people in El Fasher," said Nathaniel Raymond of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.
Witnesses reported fighting in Al-Fulah, the capital of West Kordofan state which borders Darfur.
The conflict had already expanded to North Kordofan state, a commercial and transportation hub between Khartoum and parts of Sudan's south and west.
Numerous rights groups and witnesses who fled Darfur have reported the massacre of civilians and ethnically driven attacks and killings, largely by paramilitary forces and their allied Arab tribal groups.
Many have fled across the western border to neighbouring Chad, while others have sought refuge in other parts of Darfur, where the International Criminal Court is probing alleged war crimes.
On Friday, a rebel group that in 2020 signed a peace agreement with Khartoum announced it was aligning with the RSF.
The so-called Tamazuj Front said it aimed "to fight the remnants of the old regime that use the army to reinstate their totalitarian power".
Several figures of former strongman Omar al-Bashir's regime, which was toppled in 2019, have escaped from prison in recent months, with some voicing their support for the army.
Fighting in the latest conflict has concentrated on El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, where the UN suspects crimes against humanity have been committed. — AFP
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