Fierce fighting in south and west Sudan killed at least 65 people and wounded more than 130 Monday, medics said, as the devastating war between the army and paramilitary forces rages on.

Fierce fighting in south and west Sudan killed at least 65 people and wounded more than 130 Monday, medics said, as the devastating war between the army and paramilitary forces rages on.

In South Kordofan, artillery fire on the state capital Kadugli killed at least 40 people and wounded 70, according to two medical sources.

The city, controlled by the Sudanese army, was targeted in an attack that Governor Mohamed Ibrahim blamed on a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, which also maintains a foothold in the state.

“Hilu’s attack on civilians in Kadugli aims to destabilise” the area, Ibrahim said in a statement to AFP, vowing to “clear the mountains around Kadugli” of rebel forces.

The governor said that the shelling targeted a local market.

SPLM-N has clashed with both the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in different parts of South Kordofan throughout their war.

In the vast western region of Darfur, a military air strike on South Darfur’s capital, Nyala, killed 25 people and wounded 63 on Monday, a medical source told AFP.

The attack hit “the Cinema District in Nyala”, an area under RSF control, the source told AFP, on condition of anonymity over safety concerns.

In a statement on Monday, the RSF accused the army of using “barrel bombs” against civilians in several neighbourhoods in Nyala.

Monday’s attacks in South Kordofan and Darfur also come amid intensified fighting between the army and the RSF in Khartoum, where the army has made advances against the paramilitaries.

Last week, the army broke a siege of its headquarters in the capital and the Signal Corps in Khartoum North, which had both been encircled by the RSF since the war began.

On Saturday, at least 60 people were killed and more than 150 injured when the RSF shelled a busy market in army-controlled Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.

Across the Nile in the capital itself, an air strike on an RSF-controlled area left two civilians dead and dozens wounded, rescuers said.

Both warring sides have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.