KHARTOUM: Air strikes killed or wounded more than twenty civilians in Khartoum on Saturday, a citizens group said, as medics reported hundreds of wounded fleeing Sudan’s western Darfur region in worsening violence of a two-month war.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) claimed to have shot down a Sudanese armed forces (SAF) fighter plane. A military source said a plane did go down but blamed a “malfunction”.

The SAF, commanded by Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, has since April 15 been battling the RSF, headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, after the two fell out in a power struggle. Witnesses say air strikes have intensified in the capital over the past few days.

On Saturday, warplanes again struck residential districts of Khartoum, killing “17 civilians, including five children”, according to a citizens’ support committee.

Residents had earlier reported air strikes around the city’s southern Yarmouk district — home to a weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex where the RSF claimed “full control” last week.

The citizens committee added that 11 other civilians were wounded.

In a video published on Friday on the army’s Facebook page, deputy army chief Yasser Atta warned civilians to keep away from houses where the RSF are located because the army “will attack them at any time”.

Since battles began, the death toll across the country has topped 2,000, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project said.

Hundreds of kilometres west of Khartoum, up to 1,100 have been killed in the West Darfur state capital El Geneina alone, according to the US State Department.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2023