Sudan war spreads, as death toll tops 9,000

A paramilitary attack on Jabal Awliya south of Khartoum killed at least 10 people on Saturday, activists reported, as the death toll from Sudan’s six-month war hit more than 9,000.

“Bombs fell inside civilian homes” in the small town some 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the city, the local ‘resistance committee’ said.

The volunteer group is one of many across Sudan that used to organise pro-democracy protests. Since the war broke out between the army and paramilitaries on April 15, these groups have helped people caught up in the conflict.

The committee in Jabal Awliya reported the paramilitaries unleashing “heavy artillery” on the town, in their latest attack on areas that had previously been spared the fighting between Sudan’s rival generals.

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The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has been mostly in Khartoum and the western region of Darfur.

By October, “more than 9,000 fatalities” had been recorded by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, ACLED,it said late Friday, stressing that its estimates are conservative.

The fighting has displaced almost 4.3 million people within Sudan, in addition to around 1.2 million more who have fled across borders.

In recent weeks, the violence has also moved further south, threatening the fragile safety of more than 366,000 people who have sought shelter in Al Jazira state just south of the capital.

Witnesses report the RSF setting up checkpoints along the road between Khartoum and Jazira state capital Wad Madani, which is 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of the capital.

Khartoum itself – where millions of people remain trapped – has not had a single day of respite since the war began.

Witnesses in the north of the city on Saturday again reported “artillery fire” and street battles.