Sudan is on the brink of a “full-scale civil war”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says, as fierce clashes between rival generals continue unabated in the capital, Khartoum.

Mr Guterres warned on Saturday night (local time) the war between the Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary force was likely to destabilise the entire region, according to Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the secretary-general.

Sudan descended into chaos after months of tension between military chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and his rival, General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in mid-April.

Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said in televised comments last month the clashes had killed more than 3000 people and wounded more than 6000 others. 

The death tally, however, is highly likely to be much higher. 

More than 2.9 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighbouring countries, according to UN figures.

The fighting came 18 months after the two generals led a military coup in October 2021 that toppled a Western-backed civilian transitional government.

The conflict dashed Sudanese hopes of a peaceful transition to democracy after a popular uprising forced the military removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

The war has turned the capital Khartoum and other urban areas across the country into battlefields.

Residents in Khartoum said fierce fighting was under way early on Sunday south of the capital. 

The warring factions were using heavy weapons in the battles in the Kalaka neighbourhood and the military’s aircraft were seen hovering over the area, resident Abdalla al-Fatih said.

In his statement, Mr Guterres also condemned an air strike on Saturday that health authorities said killed at least 22 people in Omdurman, a city just across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum. 

The assault was one of the deadliest in the conflict.

Darfur ‘sliding back to genocide’

The secretary-general also decried the large-scale violence and casualties in the western region of Darfur, which has experienced some of the worst fighting in the ongoing conflict, Mr Haq said.

“There is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing,” Mr Guterres said.

UN officials have said the violence in the region has recently taken an ethnic dimension, with the RSF and Arab militias reportedly targeting non-Arab tribes in Darfur, a sprawling region consisting of five provinces. 

Last month, the governor of Darfur, Mini Arko Minawi, said the region was sliding back to its past genocide, referring to the conflict that engulfed the region in the early 2000s.

Entire towns and villages in West Darfur province were overrun by the RSF and their allied militias, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee to neighbouring Chad.

Activists have reported many residents killed, women and girls raped, and properties looted and burned to the ground.

There were clashes between the military and the RSF elsewhere in Sudan on Sunday including the province of North Kordofan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

-AAP