The view from Sudan's capital, which has seen days of nonstop urban warfare

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Sudan's sprawling capital, Khartoum, has been shattered by three days of nonstop violent urban warfare. While the rival generals of two ruling military factions launch barrages of heavy artillery, bombs and gunfire at each other, the 6 million residents of the city are trapped inside and unable to venture out. Some have no power, no water and no food, and no one has any idea of when or how the violence will end, as NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.

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EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: The nights in Khartoum bring no peace.

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AKINWOTU: Tanks rumble through the empty streets. During the day, the quiet is ruptured by endless bombing...

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AKINWOTU: ...The roar of fighter jets striking from the sky...

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AKINWOTU: ...And the constant crackle of gunfire.

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AKINWOTU: This is the soundtrack to three days of war. In Khartoum, like many other besieged parts of Sudan, a bloody power struggle is unravelling between two former allies - General Abdel Fattah Burhan, the de facto head of state and head of Sudan's army, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, otherwise known as Hemedti. He leads the Rapid Support Forces, a notorious paramilitary group that has become a key state actor in Sudan over decades. Both sides were meant to integrate as part of a fragile transition process back to civilian rule, but bitter disputes for supremacy within an integrated army and rivalry for power in a future democratic Sudan has led to this.

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AKINWOTU: And while the warring generals promise victory, Sudanese people in the final days of Ramadan pray to survive the fight and watch as their country falls apart.

MUHJAH KHATEEB: Yeah. I can hear you very well, but I have a severe headache because of the stress.

AKINWOTU: Muhjah Khateeb is 42. She's living in the southern part of the city. I reached her by WhatsApp, and she told me she woke at 10 a.m. on Saturday to several missed phone calls, just before the fighting started.

KHATEEB: One of my friends, he's an army officer, he called me eight times. And I said, what's wrong with him? And when I called him back, he told me, like, where are you? Don't leave your house because the war is started.

AKINWOTU: Then she started to hear explosions, and then the power went out. She told me she hasn't been able to buy food and is barely eating to ration the little that she has.

KHATEEB: I don't have enough water, and since yesterday, I didn't eat more than one bread. I was just taking small piece of cheese, and I'm just, like, drinking coffee. How can I buy food, or how can I - I don't know. No one was ready for this, you know?

AKINWOTU: Food prices are going up. Tap water is no longer running. She hasn't had steady power for over a day. All around, the fighting continues, and the casualties rise in the hundreds.

AHMAD HIKMAT: We can see that it's escalating pretty much quickly.

AKINWOTU: Ahmad Hikmat owns a radio station in Sudan. Like millions, he and his family are sheltering at home. Over the last four years in Khartoum, millions have seen shocking violence. Hundreds of democracy protesters have been killed. But this is different. A war is unfolding in a way many never imagined, with battling groups of former militias and soldiers roaming around their home city.

HIKMAT: These guys is going to start now, you know, getting into people's houses by force. Then the rape will start, the thefts will start, you know, because you're talking about militia now, roaming freely in the capital city.

AKINWOTU: And very soon, Ahmad says, the outside world will have no idea what is going on.

HIKMAT: Now we have internet. I can speak to you over WhatsApp. Tomorrow, the day after, we will not be able to have this conversation. We need to be ready. The way it's going right now, it doesn't look like it's going to stop soon.

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AKINWOTU: For Muhjah, this means she'll have to endure these days in isolation. She usually lives with her 15-year-old son. He's at a relative's house and was meant to return home on the day the fighting started, but he couldn't safely travel across the city.

KHATEEB: I'm not sure if I can see my son again. I called my mother friend, where my son is staying, and I asked about him. And they told me he's OK, he's sleeping, but he's sleeping under the bed, so it seemed that he's afraid.

AKINWOTU: Emmanuel Akinwotu NPR News, Lagos.

(SOUNDBITE OF DE LA SOUL'S "MEMORY OF...(US)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.