NAIROBI, Kenya — As a new wave of violence swept the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Monday, millions of residents hiding in their homes felt the growing strain from the battles, and doctors and hospitals were struggling to cope with casualties and get the supplies and staff members that they needed.
The forces of rival generals battling for control of Sudan clashed for a third day in the capital and other parts of the country, threatening to worsen a humanitarian crisis in a nation already facing dire economic straits, growing hunger and widespread unemployment.
The fighting has left many of Khartoum’s five million residents stranded at home without electricity or water as they marked the last few days of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month when many fast daily from dawn until dusk. Some were too afraid to venture out for food or other supplies.
A doctors’ group said that hospitals remained understaffed and were running low on supplies as wounded people streamed in. And the World Health Organization said that the insecurity in the capital was impeding medical workers and ambulances from reaching those in need of critical care.
The fighting, which erupted on Saturday, has pitted a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese Army — a longstanding rivalry between Sudan’s two top generals who have been vying for dominance over the northeast African nation. It was still not clear who was in control of the country even as both sides claimed crucial victories.
The death toll from the first two days of fighting rose to 97, according to the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors.
Musab Khojali, a 30-year-old doctor who works at a Khartoum hospital, said the facility ran out of bandages, IV fluids, painkillers, sutures and gauze as the wounded flooded in over the weekend. He said that he and other doctors were so busy that they did not leave the hospital premises for two days.
“We are doing anything we can to save as many people as possible,” he said in a phone interview. “We already had a collapsed health system, and this crisis has just added a new burden.”
Khartoum residents said there was an escalation in the number of fighter jets and helicopters that were circling the city starting at about 3 a.m. local time Monday. Two people in an area close to the city’s international airport said the planes were circling every few minutes and getting very close to their homes.
“It’s like they are on top of our heads,” said Dallia Mohamed Abdelmoniem, a resident who was taking shelter with 10 people, including family members.
In the Kafouri suburb north of Khartoum, one resident said the jets had hit a camp belonging to the Rapid Support Forces. Two major explosions also rocked the neighborhood, shattering windows and leaving the homes in the area shaking. It was not immediately clear if those blasts resulted in casualties.
There was intense street fighting and blasts in several neighborhoods, including in the upscale Riyadh neighborhood and the Burri suburb, residents said.
Since the fighting began on Saturday, Ahmed Abuhurira, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer, said he has had neither electricity nor water at his home in the Arkaweet neighborhood in eastern Khartoum, where he has been hunkering down with his father and brother. He said his mother has been stuck in the Bahri neighborhood north of the capital, where there have been intense clashes.
To charge his phone, Mr. Abuhurira said he had to walk for half an hour through desolate and dangerous streets to a friend’s house. Whenever he met neighbors or other people in the streets, “they look like a zombie without a soul or spirit,” he said.
“Everyone is afraid,” he added. “You can see it in their eyes. People are panicking.”
The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said that 41 people, a majority of them in Khartoum, were killed in clashes on Sunday, bringing the toll for the first two days of fighting to 97. There was no immediate word on casualties from Monday’s fighting. Nearly 350 people were injured, according to the committee.
The doctors’ group also said that patients and medical workers at a hospital in Khartoum were evacuated on Monday afternoon after it came under heavy gunfire and shelling.
Clashes also resumed on Monday in the restive region of Darfur in western Sudan, with rival forces facing off in Zalingei in Central Darfur state and Nyala in South Darfur.
Abdelhadi Yagoub Abbaker, a resident of Nyala, said there was widespread looting of homes, businesses and offices for a second day. Mr. Abbaker said that many civilians remained at home as intense gunfire rocked the city.
Adam Regal, a spokesman for an aid agency, the General Coordination for Refugees and Displaced in Darfur, said the clashes spread to the camps for displaced people in Darfur, with numerous deaths and injuries.
“The situation is very complicated and difficult,” Mr. Regal said.
For decades, Sudan has suffered under the yoke of dictatorship, coups and political instability, with successive governments overseeing widespread repression and genocidal violence, particularly in the Darfur region. The country has struggled to shake off its troubled history even after the longtime autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir was ousted in 2019.
Over the past few years, generals have steadily tightened their grip on the nation, killing and jailing civilians and repeatedly scuttling any attempt to transition to democratic rule. The tension between the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, had been simmering for months now and finally ruptured into violent confrontations between their forces on Saturday morning.
On Monday, General Hamdan accused General al-Burhan of “bombing civilians from the air,” adding: “We will continue to pursue al-Burhan and bring him to justice.”
The Sudanese army said in a statement on Facebook that they were conducting “our battle as planned and were operating within the rules of conflict and international humanitarian law.”
The clashes across Sudan have drawn worldwide concern, with regional and global leaders along with humanitarian and aid organizations calling on both parties to cease the violence.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-nation regional bloc that Sudan belongs to, said on Sunday that it would dispatch the presidents of Kenya, Djibouti and South Sudan to mediate between the parties.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said there was a “shared deep concern” among the United States and its allies over the fighting in Sudan, and called for the violence to end immediately. Mr. Blinken also urged the two generals to “ensure the protection of civilians and noncombatants as well as people from third countries” who are currently in Sudan.
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Karuizawa, Japan.
