PORT SUDAN, Sudan, May 12, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - A major city in Sudan's western
region of Darfur has been rocked by fighting involving "heavy weaponry", a
senior UN official said Saturday.

Violence erupted in populated areas of El-Fasher, putting about 800,000
people at risk, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN's humanitarian coordinator
for Sudan, said in a statement.

Wounded civilians were being rushed to hospital and civilians were trying to
flee the fighting, she added.

"I am gravely concerned by the eruption of clashes in (El-Fasher) despite
repeated calls to parties to the conflict to refrain from attacking the
city," said Nkweta-Salami.

"I am equally disturbed by reports of the use of heavy weaponry and attacks
in highly populated areas in the city center and the outskirts of (El-
Fasher), resulting in multiple casualties," she added.

For more than a year, Sudan has suffered a war between the army, headed by
the country's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary
Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan
Daglo.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 8.5
million to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the
"largest displacement crisis in the world".

The RSF has seized four out of five state capitals in Darfur, a region about
the size of France and home to around one quarter of Sudan's 48 million
people.

El-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur that is not under paramilitary
control and the United States warned last month of a looming offensive on the
city.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Saturday he was "very concerned about the
ongoing war in Sudan".

"We need an urgent ceasefire and a coordinated international effort to
deliver a political process that can get the country back on track," he said
in a post on social media site X.