More than 700,000 people displaced in Sudan war
The fighting has turned urban areas into battlefields and displaced hundreds of thousands on top of the 3.7 million who had already been internally displaced before the conflict began, according to the UN.
The UN refugee agency said on Monday that 150,000 Sudanese had fled to neighbouring countries.
The war between Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is having increasingly severe consequences for civilians, with a doubling over the past week of the number uprooted from their homes, the United Nations has said.
As of Tuesday, hundreds have been killed so far. New worries emerged as separate ethnic clashes have claimed at least 16 lives in the country's south, and a powerful group in the east — so far untouched by the war — demonstrated in support of the army.
More than 700,000 people are now internally displaced by battles since April 15, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
"Last Tuesday, the figure stood at 340,000," the UN agency's spokesman, Paul Dillon, said in Geneva.
An increasing number are also crossing borders to escape the conflict between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan, and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo who commands the paramilitary RSF.
Fighting has been concentrated in the capital Khartoum but other areas, particularly the western Darfur region bordering Chad, have also seen heavy fighting.
Those left behind in the warzones face shortages of water, electricity, food and medical care in a country where, according to the UN, about one-third of the population needed humanitarian assistance even before fighting began.
Growing risk
Even before this war, Sudan suffered localised conflicts that last year killed about 900 people, according to the UN.
Those conflicts are often over access to scarce water and other resources, but they also reflected a security breakdown since Burhan and Daglo staged a coup in October 2021, derailing a transition to democracy after the toppling of longtime ruler Omar al Bashir.
The two generals later fell out in a power struggle, leading to the current fighting.
The fighting on Sunday between the Hausa and Nuba ethnic groups killed 16 people, wounded scores more and prompted a regional night-time curfew, state-run SUNA news agency said.
Aid facilities have faced "large-scale looting", including most recently at the World Food Programme in Khartoum over the weekend, a UN spokesperson said on Monday.
Truce talks
As representatives in Saudi Arabia seemed no closer to an agreement, "various types of weapons were fired" in northern Khartoum on Tuesday, according to a resident of the Shambat area.
Another witness reported continued clashes in the capital's south.
The Sudanese foreign ministry said army chief Burhan had received calls on Tuesday from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azali Assoumani of the Comoros, the current chairman of the African Union.
Erdogan said Türkiye will continue its efforts in contact with the UN to ensure that the urgent humanitarian needs of the Sudanese people are met, Türkiye's Communications Directorate said in a statement.
And according to a Comoros ministry's statement, Assoumani "will send a special envoy to Jeddah to help reach an agreement to end the crisis and restore stability in Sudan".
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