‘Heavy shelling outside’
Witnesses said warplanes flew over the northern suburbs of the capital on Thursday and artillery and heavy machine gun fire broke out between fighters on the ground.
“I heard heavy gunfire outside my house,” a Khartoum resident told AFP on Thursday evening.
At least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting, according to health ministry figures, although the actual death toll is likely to be much higher.
The doctors’ union said hospitals have been shelled and more than two-thirds are out of service, with at least eight civilians reported dead on Wednesday in Khartoum alone.
The World Food Program has said the violence could drive millions more to starvation in a country where 15 million people—one-third of the population—are in need of aid.
Abdu Dieng, the UN aid chief in Sudan, speaking from Port Sudan on Thursday, said he was “extremely concerned about the situation”, with food supplies a major concern.