At least 40 people were killed in an airstrike on a market in southern Khartoum, Sudan, the local volunteer emergency room said in a statement on Sunday.
It is the largest single-incident civilian death toll of the civil war in the country which began on April 15, as fighting in residential areas intensifies.
Air and artillery strikes in residential areas have intensified as the war between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) nears the five-month mark with neither side declaring victory or showing any concrete signs of pursuing mediation, Reuters reported.
Drones carried out a series of heavy air strikes on Sunday morning on southern Khartoum, a large district of the city occupied mainly by the RSF, an eyewitness who saw the strike told Reuters, asking not to be identified for security reasons.
Images shared by a body of local volunteers called the Southern Khartoum Emergency Room showed many women and men injured as well as what appeared to be dead bodies covered in cloth, some piled together.
Residents of the area tend to be day workers who cut off from jobs are too poor to afford the cost of escaping from the capital.
Mohamed Abdallah, a spokesman for the Emergency Room, which tries to provide medical and other services, said the injured had to be transported on rickshaws or donkey carts.
In a statement, the RSF accused the Sudanese army of carrying out the attack, as well as other strikes. The Sudanese army denied responsibility and blamed the RSF.
Strikes in western Omdurman last week killed at least 51 people across two separate days. With most hospitals closed and no functioning local government, volunteers struggle to document the full extent of deaths. MEHR News Agency
