At least 22 people were killed and hundreds injured in an air raid by Sudan's army on western Omdurman city on Saturday, according to the Khartoum state health ministry, as the country's armed conflict reached its 12th week.
While the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soon took control of Khartoum and its sister cities, Omdurman and Bahri, when violence erupted on April 15, the army responded with air and artillery attacks.
The violence, for which no mediation efforts have so far been successful, threatens to pull the country into a broader civil war, attracting other internal and external players in the East African nation located between the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and the Red Sea.
Tensions between the two sides had risen in the months preceding the conflict over the chain of command and the integration of their troops under a new democratic transition.
According to Farhan Haq, the secretary general's deputy spokesperson, the secretary general is especially outraged by reports of widespread violence and deaths in Sudan's Darfur area.
"He is also concerned about reports of renewed fighting in North Kordofan, South Kordofan, and the Blue Nile States. There is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing," it added.
Guterres reiterated his call for the Sudanese Armed Forces and its rival Rapid Support Forces to cease fighting and commit to a durable cessation of hostilities.
According to the federal health ministry, at least 1,133 people have been killed in the conflict, which has erupted in the capital as well as the Kordofan and Darfur areas, igniting ethnic strife in West Darfur state. More than 2.9 million people have been displaced, with roughly 700,000 fleeing to neighboring nations. More than half of the cash has been spent. According to relief organizations, it has also resulted in "alarming numbers" of rapes and kidnappings of women and girls.
