Airstrikes kill over 40 in Khartoum's market as fighting intensifies

Air strikes on Sunday (Sep. 10) on an open market south of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, killed at least 46 people, activists and a medical group said.

Over 50 others were wounded in the attack in Khartoum’s May neighborhood, where paramilitary forces battling the military were heavily deployed, the Sudan Doctors' Union said in a statement.

The wounded and the dead were transferred to the closest hospital which is located in Bachaïr.  It is one of the latest still operating in Khartoum where some 5 million people live trapped in their homes with no eletricy and running water most of the time.

The RSF blamed the military's air force for Sunday's attack, whiile the military said that it didn't target civilians, describing the RSF accusations as “false and misleading claims.”

Sudan has been rocked by violence since mid-April, when tensions between the country’s strongmen, army general Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary general by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, burst into open fighting.

The conflict has since spread to several parts of the country. In the Greater Khartoum area, RSF troops have commandeered civilian homes and turned them into operational bases. The military responded by bombing these residential areas, rights groups and activists say.

The number of internally displaced persons has nearly doubled since mid-April to reach at least 7.1 million people, according to the U.N. refugee agency.