By Gaure Mdee
The sun was barely up on Saturday morning in Sudan's capital Khartoum when Shakur Nya Keto was heading to work.
Suddenly, the army closed off the road, and gunshots rang out.
Nya Keto ran back home only to find out through a phone call that his brother had been shot and taken to the hospital.
"I had to take him out of the hospital as I had no idea who would be taking control of the hospital and had to get him home, keep him there, treating him on our own," Nya Keto told TRT Afrika.
On Saturday, forces of the two generals who took power in a 2021 coup - army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo who commands the RSF - fought.
The violence resulted from a bitter dispute between them regarding the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army, which is a crucial condition for a final deal to restore Sudan's democratic transition.
RSF fighters swarmed the streets atop armoured vehicles and pickup trucks laden with weapons while military fighter jets roared overhead and fired on RSF targets.
Witnesses reported heavy gunfire and loud explosions, and thick black smoke rose from buildings around the army headquarters in Khartoum - a city of five million people.
The battles have caused damage to residential and commercial buildings. Civilians sheltering in their homes are increasingly desperate due to dwindling food supplies, power outages, and a lack of running water.
Nya Keto's wife is weeks away from delivering their first child, and it looks like the process will be much more challenging, he said.
"People open very few shops, and only small shops are open at the moment, but Supermarkets are open for two or three hours. But this is after we look out onto the streets to see if it is safe. Shopkeepers are only open for a bit, and the queues are long."
Yusra Salih, a resident of Al Azhari City, north of Sudan, who returned from a holiday in Egypt on Friday night, did not expect the conflict that erupted on Saturday.
"I was planning to go to the office on Saturday, I was just sleeping, and suddenly, I was awoken by a bomb blast," Salih told TRT Afrika.
"First thing I did was call my family and find out how they were as they live in a different area from me. So I tried to call them to get an update. Are they ok? Are they far from the conflict, only to find out they are close to the fighting."
Salih has only left the house at night to get food because the city is unsafe.
Water and power have been cut off, so people rely on others close to industrial and medical areas for essential resources.
Families come to Salih's house every day to charge their phones and bathe since there has been no power in the city.
On Wednesday, many families started moving out of town as they had lost contact with family and friends.
But many struggled to leave as a ticket out of town had gone from $30 to $120.
"I want to take my family away from here… We have lost contact with family and friends, even in Darfur, and there is no way to drive out of Khartoum." Nya Keto said.
"A ticket out of town has gone up to get to Darfur. So people have no idea how to get out of town when prices constantly rise."
Khartoum residents want the conflict to stop, but there needs to be a clear indication of when it will end, Salih said.
"How long will they fight for? One week, two weeks or months? And you know the economic situation in Sudan, I am hoping for a ceasefire," Yusra Salih told TRT Afrika.
"I am scared, and I am not very optimistic at all."
