Wad Madani, Sudan: In a war-ravaged area of ​​the Sudanese capital, Abbas Mohamed Babiker says he and his family could only eat once a day. Now even that is in doubt, but on Sunday the Citizens Support Group issued an urgent appeal for donations to help people like him.

“We only have enough for two more days,” said Babikir of Khartoum North, where residents said at least one local musician died of starvation.

Since April 15, battles between the Sudanese army, led by Major General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have killed more than 3,900 people, according to the latest tally from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, or ACLED.

The International Organization for Migration said more than 2.6 million people have been internally displaced, mostly from Khartoum.

Thousands of those who remain in the capital, especially in Khartoum North, are trapped in their homes without water since the local water station was damaged at the start of the war.

Residents say there is only intermittent electricity and almost no food.

The United Nations World Food Program said that about a third of the population across the country was already going hungry even before the war began.

Despite the security challenges, the agency says it has reached more than 1.4 million people with emergency food aid as needs intensify.

“With the fighting, there is no market anymore, and anyway we don’t have money,” said Issam Abbas, a resident of Khartoum North.

To help them, the local Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy neighborhood group, issued its emergency appeal.

“We have to support each other, provide food and money and distribute to those around us,” the committee wrote on Facebook.

In nearby Omdurman, another war-ravaged sister city of Khartoum, locally known violinist Khaled al-Sanhouri died of starvation last week, his Facebook friends wrote.

In his private online posts, Sanuri said he was unable to leave the house because of the fighting and tried to hold on to the supplies he had. That wasn’t enough.

At least 20 Sudanese civilians have been killed by rocket fire on residential areas in one of the main cities in Darfur and shelling near hospitals in North Kordofan state, lawyers and medics said on Saturday.

The Doctors Syndicate said that since Friday morning, shells have landed near four hospitals in El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, killing four civilians and wounding 45.

In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, the Bar Association said the rocket fire killed 16 civilians.

The Darfur region, ravaged by brutal conflict in the early 2000s, has seen some of the worst violence since fighting broke out in mid-April between rival Sudanese generals vying for power.

“During an exchange of missile fire between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, 16 civilians were killed on Friday, according to a preliminary toll,” the Bar Association said.

It added that a sniper killed at least one man.

In El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, near Chad, snipers have reportedly been targeting residents from rooftops since the fighting began, and tens of thousands have fled across the border.

The war, which broke out in the capital Khartoum on April 15 and spread to Darfur later that month, has left at least 3,000 people dead across Sudan, according to a conservative estimate.

Fighting in Darfur, a stronghold of the RSF, has recently centered around Nyala, after brutal clashes in El Geneina where atrocities were reported by the United Nations.

Battles also continued in and around Khartoum.

On Saturday, residents reported that the army’s first air strikes had taken place on villages in Jazira state, south of the capital.

The fertile land between the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers now hosts several hundred thousand of the estimated 3.3 million people displaced by the war. If the fighting spread to the island, they might have to flee again.

The humanitarians they support will also have to move, but they fear the many bureaucratic challenges in moving their operations.

Analysts say the two warring sides would like to see the battlefield expand.

“The Rapid Support Forces have had the upper hand in Khartoum since the early days of the war, but this advantage is becoming increasingly apparent,” said the International Crisis Group.

The International Crisis Group said that on July 15 the army launched a major offensive in northern Khartoum, razing entire suburban neighborhoods with airstrikes, “but it failed spectacularly”.

Meanwhile, the Rapid Support Forces are trying to control the main road between Darfur and Khartoum to ensure a continuous supply of fighters and weapons.