More than twenty civilians were killed last Sunday night when shells hit a market in Omdurman, a suburb of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which has been torn apart by the generals’ war for power since April, according to a non-governmental organization.

According to a press release from the Committee of Lawyers for Democracy, which records civilian casualties and human rights violations in the armed conflict, “during intense exchanges of fire between the warring parties, shells fell in a market in Omdurman.”

“More than 20 civilians were killed and others injured,” continued the press release obtained by AFP in Wad Madani, 200 kilometers south of Khartoum.

Last Saturday, at least 15 civilians were killed when “shells hit their houses” in Khartoum, a medical source said.

Since April 15, the war between the armed forces under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo has claimed more than 9,000 lives, according to the NGO ACLED , but which is considered too undervalued.

It has also displaced over 6 million Sudanese and destroyed most infrastructure.

The two camps, unable to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefields, do not intend to make the slightest concession at the negotiating table.

Talks between the warring parties were again held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. They were intended to “facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid, the declaration of a ceasefire and the implementation of other confidence-building measures and progress towards a permanent end to hostilities,” according to Riyadh.

Previous attempts at mediation have yielded only brief truces that have been routinely violated and all collapsed within days, if not hours.

Generals Burhan and Daglo seem to have chosen a war of attrition, with the expectation that they will be able to secure greater concessions at the negotiating table, experts note.