ALBAWABA - As the war in Sudan enters its fourth month and continues to relentlessly tear through the country, residents of the western Sudanese city of Nyala said that violence has intensified in Nyala and other neighboring areas.
Clashes have erupted on a regular basis between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Nyala, the country's second-largest city and a critical hub for the fragile Darfur region.
According to witnesses, the latest flare-up lasted three days, with both the army and the RSF firing ordnance into residential neighborhoods. The heavy fighting resulted in injuring more than 100 civilians.
The Darfur Bar Association, a national human rights watchdog, stated that at least eight people were killed on Saturday alone. According to witnesses, the fierce combats have recently spread 100 kilometers west of Nyala, in the Kubum area, killing dozens of civilians along the way.
The bar association said Arab tribesmen equipped with RSF vehicles attacked the area, burning the market and raiding the police station in an attack on a rival Arab tribe.
"We call on all elements not to get dragged into the conflict whose aim is power in the center of the country," the bar association said in a statement.
The UN’s special representative to Sudan, Volker Perthes, warned in July that the conflict showed no signs of a quick resolution and "risked morphing into an ethnicized civil war".
