Fighting intensifies in Sudan after army pulls out of negotiations

Fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified in the capital, Khartoum, after the armed forces announced their withdrawal from ceasefire negotiations with their opponent due to disagreements. 

Witnesses told EFE that army planes bombed FAR positions in the south of Khartoum's neighbouring town of Um Durman, while the paramilitaries responded with anti-aircraft artillery fire, causing large plumes of smoke to rise in the area. 

The armed forces also bombed the Karari military base, FAR's main base in Um Durman, while also conducting air raids in the eastern Nile region.

For its part, FAR said in a statement that its special units carried out an operation on the Wadi Sayedna military base in northern Um Durman, claiming to have destroyed three fighter jets and to have killed and wounded "dozens" of military personnel. 

They also said the paramilitaries would "intensify lightning operations against all army positions in the capital and the states". 

However, an army military source denied these reports to EFE and indicated that the FAR fired Katyusha rockets at the military base, but the projectile hit the outskirts of the installation. 

This escalation comes a day after the army withdrew from indirect negotiations with the FAR in the Saudi city of Jeddah over disagreements on the eviction of paramilitaries from residential areas inhabited by civilians.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders said today that more than 140,000 people, mostly South Sudanese women and children who have fled Khartoum, have arrived in White Nile state following the outbreak of conflict on 15 April and face "massive shortages of food, shelter and medical care" in ten reception camps. 

The conflict in Sudan, which began after a FAR rebellion against the army in mid-April, has left more than 1,100 people dead, as well as 3.5 million displaced people and refugees, according to the UN.

The official death toll, however, has not been updated for more than a month, while the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) estimates the death toll at 3,900.