MORE than 300 civilians have been killed in two days of intense fighting in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency, as the country’s brutal civil war nears the two-year mark.

The attacks launched by Sudan’s notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on two famine-hit camps for displaced people in North Darfur and its nearby capital on Friday and Saturday were initially reported to have left more than 100 dead, including 20 children and nine aid workers, according to a UN official.

But the world body’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported the much higher death toll on Monday, citing local sources.

Sudan plunged into conflict on April 15 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders erupted into violence in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions, including the vast western Darfur region.

Since then, at least 24,000 people have been reported killed, according to the US, though activists say the true number is far higher.

The RSF carried out the recent attacks after the Sudanese military regained control of Khartoum late last month, in a major symbolic victory.

The war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and worst displacement crisis and has led to Sudan becoming the only country in the world experiencing famine.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the OCHA had received reports of mass casualties and large-scale displacement following the recent fighting in and around the Zamzam and Abu Shorouk displacement camps, as well as North Darfur’s capital El Fasher, the only capital in Darfur that the RSF doesn’t control. North Darfur is one of five states in the Darfur region.

“Preliminary figures from local sources indicate that more than 300 civilians have been killed, including 10 humanitarian personnel from the NGO Relief International who lost their lives while operating one of the last functioning health centres in Zamzam camp,” Mr Dujarric said.

In London, a one-day conference on the war in Sudan took place today, bringing together officials from Western nations, international institutions and neighbouring countries, but neither side in the conflict was invited.

The event’s main aim was not to negotiate peace but to ease the humanitarian crisis.

The African Union, which co-hosted the conference with Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities.”

But British Foreign Secretary David Lammy acknowledged that achieving peace would take time, renewed international effort and “patient diplomacy.”