After six months of civil war, little remains of Khartoum

Mohammed HussainRSFRSFSAFRSFRSF, a merchant, is a refugee in his own city. A few months after civil war broke out in Khartoum’s streets in April, he tried to take his sick father to hospital. But the roads were blocked by soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces (), a rebellious paramilitary group that is trying to seize control of the country. Unable to get medical help, his father died. Last month, fighters from the seized Mr Hussain’s home, robbing him and threatening to kill him. He fled to relatives in another part of the city. Khartoum, he says, echoes to the sound of gunfire and shelling “every day and every night”.The first shots of Sudan’s civil war were fired in Khartoum, where the two rival warlords had their headquarters. On one side is Sudan’s de facto president, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (). On the other is the leader of the , Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti. Since then the fighting has spread far beyond the capital’s barracks. In West Darfur, the and allied Arab militias are waging a genocidal campaign against the Masalit, a black African ethnic group. Nationwide, some 9,000 civilians have reportedly been killed, though this is probably a massive underestimate. More than 5.6m have been driven from their homes.