Sudan's embattled capital awoke Monday to a third day of heavy fighting between the army and a powerful rival force for control of the country, as the weekend's civilian death toll rose to 97.
Airstrikes and shelling intensified in parts of Khartoum and the adjoining city of Omdurman. Rapid, sustained firing was heard near the military headquarters, with white smoke rising from the area. Residents hunkering down in their homes reported power outages and incidents of looting."Gunfire and shelling are everywhere," Wadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in Khartoum.
Both men have dug in, saying they would not negotiate a truce, instead engaging in verbal attacks and demanding the other's surrender. Still, both have powerful foreign backers, making them potentially susceptible to mounting diplomatic pressure. The chaotic scenes of fighting with tanks, truck-mounted machine guns, artillery and warplanes in densely populated areas of the capital are unprecedented. Sudan has a long history of civil strife, but much of that has taken place in remote tribal areas, far from Khartoum.
The battles created more hardships for Sudan where about 16 million people, or one-third of the population, depend on humanitarian assistance. Koko, the head of the tea vendors' union, said Burhan and Dagalo must stop fighting and withdraw troops from residential areas. "We, the people, want to live in peace," she said. "We want security."
"People in Sudan want the military back in the barracks," he said. "They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path."
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