Thousands of displaced people have fled the once safe town of Wad Madani in Sudan as war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reaches the city.

As the AFP news agency reported on Sunday, paramilitary forces set up a base in the east of Sudan’s second largest city and the capital of al-Jazirah state, forcing thousands of already displaced people to flee.

The RSF attack opened a new front in the eight-month-long war, in an area that had previously been “one of the few remaining safe havens in Sudan,” according to William Carter, Sudan director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

In videos posted on social media, crowds of people, many of whom had sought refuge in the city from violence in the capital Khartoum, were seen packing up their belongings and leaving on foot.

“The war has followed us to Madani, so I’m looking for a bus so me and my family can escape,” 45-year-old Ahmed Salih told Reuters by telephone.

“We are living in hell and there is no one to help us,” he said, adding that he planned to drive south to Sennar.

The Sudanese army, which has controlled the city since the start of the conflict, launched airstrikes on RSF troops to push back the attack that began on Friday, witnesses told Reuters.

The RSF responded with artillery and RSF reinforcements were seen moving towards the fighting, the witnesses added.

In recent days and weeks, RSF soldiers have also been seen in villages to the north and west of the city, residents said.

Sudan descended into war after rising tensions between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo led to open fighting in mid-April.

The war broke out over disagreements over plans for a political transition and the integration of the RSF into the army, four years after former leader Omar al-Bashir was toppled in an uprising.

According to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict and Event Data Project, more than 12,000 people were killed, while nearly 6.8 million people were forced to flee, according to the United Nations.

The United Nations said on Sunday that 14,000 people had fled Wad Madani so far and several thousand had already reached other cities. Half a million people had sought refuge in al-Jazirah, mostly from Khartoum.

More than 86,000 displaced people live in Wad Madani alone, according to the UN, which has suspended all humanitarian field missions in al-Jazirah state.

More than 270,000 of the city’s 700,000 residents were in need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations said.

US Ambassador John Godfrey called on the RSF to “cease its advance” on the state of al-Jazirah.

“A continued advance by the RSF risks numerous civilian casualties and significant disruption to humanitarian relief efforts,” Godfrey said in a statement on Sunday.

“No place to hide from violence”

Families tried again to flee to safety on Sunday, but found the cost of bus tickets had quadrupled to $60 per person and many had nowhere to go.

“A steady stream of people, many of whom were already running for their lives just months ago, are now pouring into already stressed and resource-poor cities in neighboring states,” said the NRC’s Carter.

“We are also extremely concerned for the particularly vulnerable families in Wad Madani who have been crammed into school displacement camps for months with no place to hide from the violence, no way to escape and nowhere else to flee can,” Carter added.

The Sudanese doctors’ union said on Sunday that the situation in the city had become “catastrophic” after pharmacies were forcibly closed.

The army and RSF expressed doubts about one last week East African Mediation Initiative aimed to end a war that has sparked the world’s largest internal displacement and warnings of famine-like conditions.

In Khartoum and the towns in Darfur that the RSF has already captured, residents have done so Rapes reported, looting and arbitrary killings and imprisonment. The group is too charged with ethnic killings in West Darfur.

The RSF has denied these allegations and said anyone in its forces found to be involved in such crimes will be held accountable.