Sudan is showing clear signs of civil war

In a country where civil wars have raged for decades, Khartoum residents say they have little faith in talks to end fighting between Sudan's army and a rival paramilitary force.

It is hoped negotiations in the Saudi city of Jeddah will produce a deal that would spare residents more death and destruction caused by fighting, which broke out on April 15 and is focused in Khartoum.

Nearly a month on, the Nile-side city is ravaged by battles fought on its streets between the army and Rapid Support Forces, with air strikes, artillery shelling and heavy gunfire transforming it into a war zone.

Officially, at least 500 civilians have been killed and thousands injured, but the actual death toll is believed to be much higher. Hundreds of thousands have fled Khartoum, either to neighbouring countries or rural areas.

The number of people internally displaced by the fighting stands at more than 700,000, the UN's International Organisation for Migration said.

Already, the objective of talks between the army and the RSF in Jeddah is to reach an enduring ceasefire that would allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians, not a peace agreement that would restore Sudan's democratic transition, derailed by a military coup in 2021 and made a low priority by the fighting.

Sponsored by the US and Saudi Arabia, the talks are aimed at extending the fragile truce now in effect and reach a deal on the provision of humanitarian assistance.

A series of ceasefires have been breached since the conflict began, with the two sides blaming each other for the violations.

Khartoum has seen reduced hostilities in recent days, but the fighting escalated on Wednesday with clashes and air strikes, witnesses said. They reported ground battles in several Khartoum neighbourhoods and heavy gunfire in the north of Omdurman and in Bahri, two adjacent cities separated from the capital by the Nile.

Since Tuesday, the army has been pounding targets across the three cities as it tries to root out RSF forces that have taken control of residential areas and strategic sites since early in the conflict.

Khartoum is showing clear signs of a city gripped by civil war, a first despite Sudan's long record of military coups, some violent, and the nation's series of protracted conflicts in the west and south.

Millions have either died or been displaced in this violence since Sudan's independence in 1956. South Sudan alone saw two civil wars, one from 1955 to 1972 and another from 1983 to 2005. The mostly animist and Christian south seceded in 2011.

Some who chose not to flee the city spoke of a lack of power or water, food shortages and a scarcity of medicines. Sudan's state commission for human rights says pockets of severe hunger have emerged in parts of Khartoum.

A third of Sudan's 44 million people needed humanitarian assistance even before the fighting began, according to UN estimates. On Tuesday night, the commission called on the RSF to pull its fighters out of the hospitals, health centres and private homes they have occupied.

It has also urged authorities to ensure that food, water and power are available at prisons across the vast Afro-Arab nation. It said it was investigating reports that prison guards have shot dead inmates in some jails.