Sudanese paramilitaries attack Darfur's Nyala, forcing civilians to flee

Attacks by Sudanese paramilitaries sent hundreds of civilians fleeing a major city in Darfur, residents have said, as battles against the regular army intensify in the restive western region.

One resident said hundreds of people have been displaced from Nyala on Sunday, Sudan's second-largest city and capital of South Darfur state, where "rockets are falling on houses".

Witnesses said on Sunday that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had attacked Nyala with "dozens of military vehicles" and that "hundreds of residents are fleeing intense artillery fire".

The war erupted in Khartoum on April 15 between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Darfur as well as Sudan's capital Khartoum have borne the brunt of nearly four months of fighting between the army and the RSF, led by rival generals vying for power.

At least 3,900 people have been killed nationwide, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

More than four million people have been uprooted from their homes, according to the United Nations refugee agency.

The vast region of Darfur has a bloody history. It is where Sudan's former ruler Omar al Bashir 2003 unleashed tribal militia in a scorched-earth campaign to quash a rebellion against perceived inequalities.

It is a stronghold of the RSF that emerged from the Popular Defence Forces, a government-linked militia known as the Janjaweed.

Massacres and ethnic killings

Fighting in the latest conflict has concentrated on El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, where the United Nations suspects that crimes against humanity have been committed.

Several sources allege there have been massacres of civilians and ethnically motivated killings in Darfur, attributed to paramilitary forces and allied militias.

Researchers at Yale University in the United States say that at least 27 villages in Darfur have been razed to the ground by the RSF and its allies since April.

"The ferocity and volume of the violence at least equals the genocide in 2003-2004," Nathaniel Raymond of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health told AFP.

"The RSF and Arab allied militias are moving methodically and quickly without impediment. They chose the time and place and attack to liquidate civilian communities," he said.

Fighting was also reported on Sunday in Khartoum's battle-scarred sister city of Omdurman just across the Nile, where one resident reported "artillery fire".