KHARTOUM - Explosions rocked the Sudanese capital Khartoum Monday as fighting between the army and paramilitary forces led by rival generals raged for a third day with the death toll surpassing 100. The violence erupted Saturday after weeks of power struggles between the two generals who seized power in a 2021 coup, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict, which has seen air strikes, tanks on the streets, artillery fire and heavy gunfire in crowded neighbourhoods both in Khartoum and other cities across Sudan, has triggered international demands for an immediate ceasefire. As the fighting showed no sign of abating, Daglo took to Twitter to call for the international community to intervene against Burhan, branding him a “radical Islamist who is bombing civilians from the air”. “We will continue to pursue Al-Burhan and bring him to justice,” he said, adding: “The fight that we are waging now is the price of democracy.” In his only statement since the fighting flared, Burhan told Al Jazeera on Saturday that he was “surprised by Rapid Support Forces attacking his home” and that what was happening “should prevent the formation of forces outside the army”.
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The conflict has claimed the lives of at least 97 civilians and “dozens” of fighters from both sides, medics said, adding about 942 people have been injured. But the number of casualties is thought to be far higher, with many wounded unable to reach hospitals due to difficulties in movement amid the fighting. The doctors’ union warned the fighting had “heavily damaged” multiple hospitals in Khartoum and other cities, with some rendered completely “out of service”. The World Health Organization had already warned that several of Khartoum’s nine hospitals receiving injured civilians “have run out of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids and other vital supplies”. UN Special Representative Volker Perthes, who is in Khartoum, said he was “extremely disappointed” by the failure of both sides to abide by an agreed humanitarian pause on Sunday to evacuate the wounded.
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The violence has forced terrified people to shelter in their homes with fears of a prolonged conflict that could plunge Sudan into deeper chaos, dashing hopes for return to civilian rule. The RSF was created under former autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2013, emerging from the Janjaweed militia that his government unleashed against non-Arab ethnic minorities in Darfur a decade earlier, drawing accusations of war crimes. The fighting broke out after bitter disagreements between Burhan and Daglo over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army -- a key condition for a final deal aimed at ending a crisis since the 2021 military coup they orchestrated together.