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Flames engulf central Khartoum as war rages across Sudan in its 6th month

Sudanese capital Khartoum faces an intensifying conflict as flames surround key landmarks and the city's skyline is obscured by smoke amid the clash between paramilitary forces and the army.

AFP

Online footage of the blaze showed clouds of dark smoke rising from the burnt-out glass-paneled tower, one of the tallest buildings in the Sudanese capital. / Photo: AFP

An 18-storey building in the centre of Sudan's capital was engulfed in flames, and paramilitary forces attacked the army headquarters for the second day in a row, witnesses reported, as fighting raged into its sixth month.

"Clashes are now happening around the army headquarters with various types of weapons," witnesses told AFP news agency on Sunday from Khartoum, while others reported fighting in the city of El Obeid, 350 kilometres south.

Battles between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces intensified on Saturday, resulting in several key buildings in central Khartoum being set alight.

In social media posts verified by AFP, users shared footage of flames devouring landmarks of the Khartoum skyline, including the Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company Tower –– a conical building with a glass facade that had become an emblem of the city.

Users mourned Khartoum, a shell of its former self, in posts that showed buildings –– their windows blown out and their walls charred or pockmarked with bullets –– continuing to smoulder.

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'One of the deadliest single attacks of the war'

Since civil war erupted on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, it has displaced more than five million people, fleeing the relentless air strikes, artillery fire and street battles in Khartoum's densely-populated neighbourhoods.

The millions that remain in the city woke up on Sunday to find clouds of smoke obscuring the skyline as the sound of bombs and gunfire burst through the capital.

"We can hear huge bangs," witnesses told AFP on Sunday from the Mayo district of southern Khartoum, where the army targeted RSF bases with artillery fire.

At least 51 people were killed last week in air strikes on a market in Mayo, according to the United Nations, in one of the deadliest single attacks of the war.

The worst of the violence has been concentrated in Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, where ethnically-motivated attacks by the RSF and allied militias have triggered renewed investigations by the International Criminal Court into possible war crimes.