As ex­plo­sions and gun­fire thun­dered out­side, Su­danese in the cap­i­tal Khar­toum and oth­er cities hud­dled in their homes for a third day Mon­day, while the army and a pow­er­ful ri­val force bat­tled in the streets for con­trol of the coun­try.

At least 185 peo­ple have been killed and over 1,800 wound­ed since the fight­ing erupt­ed, U.N. en­voy Volk­er Perthes told re­porters. The two sides are us­ing tanks, ar­tillery and oth­er heavy weapons in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas. Fight­er jets swooped over­head and an­ti-air­craft fire lit up the skies as dark­ness fell.

The toll could be much high­er be­cause there are many bod­ies in the streets around cen­tral Khar­toum that no one can reach be­cause of the clash­es. There has been no of­fi­cial word on how many civil­ians or com­bat­ants have been killed. A doc­tors’ group ear­li­er put the num­ber of civil­ian deaths at 97.

The sud­den out­break of vi­o­lence over the week­end be­tween the na­tion’s two top gen­er­als, each backed by tens of thou­sands of heav­i­ly armed fight­ers, trapped mil­lions of peo­ple in their homes or wher­ev­er they could find shel­ter, with sup­plies run­ning low and sev­er­al hos­pi­tals forced to shut down.

Top diplo­mats on four con­ti­nents scram­bled to bro­ker a truce, and the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil was set to dis­cuss the cri­sis.

“Gun­fire and shelling are every­where,” Awadeya Mah­moud Koko, head of a union for thou­sands of tea ven­dors and oth­er food work­ers, said from her home in a south­ern dis­trict of Khar­toum.

She said a shell stuck a neigh­bor’s house Sun­day, killing at least three peo­ple. “We couldn’t take them to a hos­pi­tal or bury them.”

In cen­tral Khar­toum, sus­tained gun­fire erupt­ed and white smoke rose near the main mil­i­tary head­quar­ters, a ma­jor bat­tle­front. Near­by, at least 88 stu­dents and staffers have been trapped in the en­gi­neer­ing col­lege li­brary at Khar­toum Uni­ver­si­ty since the start of fight­ing, one of the stu­dents said in a video post­ed on­line Mon­day. One stu­dent was killed dur­ing clash­es out­side and an­oth­er wound­ed, he said. They do not have food or wa­ter, he said, show­ing a room full of peo­ple sleep­ing on the floor.

Even in a coun­try with a long his­to­ry of mil­i­tary coups, the scenes of fight­ing in the cap­i­tal and its ad­join­ing city Om­dur­man across the Nile Riv­er were un­prece­dent­ed. The tur­moil comes just days be­fore Su­danese were to cel­e­brate Eid al-Fitr, the hol­i­day mark­ing the end of Ra­madan, the Is­lam­ic month of fast­ing.

The pow­er strug­gle pits Gen. Ab­del-Fat­tah Burhan, the com­man­der of the armed forces, against Gen. Mo­hammed Ham­dan Da­ga­lo, the head of the para­mil­i­tary Rapid Sup­port Forces. The for­mer al­lies joint­ly or­ches­trat­ed an Oc­to­ber 2021 mil­i­tary coup. The vi­o­lence has raised the specter of civ­il war just as Su­danese were try­ing to re­vive the dri­ve for a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, civil­ian gov­ern­ment af­ter decades of mil­i­tary rule.

Un­der in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure, Burhan and Da­ga­lo had re­cent­ly agreed to a frame­work agree­ment with po­lit­i­cal par­ties and pro-democ­ra­cy groups, but the sign­ing was re­peat­ed­ly de­layed as ten­sions rose over the in­te­gra­tion of the RSF in­to the armed forces and the fu­ture chain of com­mand.

The U.S., the U.N. and oth­ers have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Su­dan’s mil­i­tary, and Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates — which forged close ties to the RSF as it sent thou­sands of fight­ers to sup­port their war in Yemen — have al­so called for both sides to stand down.

U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken, who is at­tend­ing a Group of Sev­en meet­ing in Japan, spoke by phone with Burhan and Da­ga­lo sep­a­rate­ly and un­der­scored the ur­gency of reach­ing a cease-fire, ac­cord­ing to the State De­part­ment’s prin­ci­pal deputy spokesper­son, Vedant Pa­tel.

On Tues­day, Blinken told re­porters in Japan that in­dis­crim­i­nate mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions are “reck­less­ly en­dan­ger­ing civil­ians, diplo­mats, in­clud­ing U.S. per­son­nel, and hu­man­i­tar­i­an per­son­nel.”

Blinken said a con­voy of clear­ly marked U.S. Em­bassy ve­hi­cles came un­der fire Mon­day, and that pre­lim­i­nary re­ports in­di­cate the at­tack­ers were linked to the RSF. He said every­one in the con­voy is safe and at home.

Blinken called for an im­me­di­ate 24-hour cease­fire as a step to­ward a longer truce.

In a joint state­ment Tues­day, the G-7 for­eign min­is­ters con­demned the fight­ing. “We urge the par­ties to end hos­til­i­ties im­me­di­ate­ly with­out pre-con­di­tions,” it said, call­ing for them to re­turn to ne­go­ti­a­tions and re­duce ten­sions.

Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Ab­del Fat­tah el-Sis­si said late Mon­day that Cairo was in “con­stant con­tact” with both the army and the RSF, urg­ing them to halt the fight­ing and re­turn to ne­go­ti­a­tions.

But both gen­er­als have thus far dug in, de­mand­ing the oth­er’s sur­ren­der.

The Eu­ro­pean Union’s for­eign pol­i­cy chief, Josep Bor­rell tweet­ed that the EU am­bas­sador to Su­dan “was as­sault­ed in his own res­i­den­cy,” with­out pro­vid­ing fur­ther de­tails. EU of­fi­cials did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to re­quests for com­ment.

Da­ga­lo, whose forces grew out of the no­to­ri­ous Jan­jaweed mili­tias in Su­dan’s Dar­fur re­gion, has por­trayed him­self as a de­fend­er of democ­ra­cy and brand­ed Burhan as the ag­gres­sor and a “rad­i­cal Is­lamist.” Both gen­er­als have a long his­to­ry of hu­man rights abus­es and their forces have cracked down on pro-democ­ra­cy ac­tivists.

Heavy gun­bat­tles raged in mul­ti­ple parts of the cap­i­tal and Om­dur­man, where the two sides have brought in tens of thou­sands of troops, po­si­tion­ing them in near­ly every neigh­bor­hood.

Twelve hos­pi­tals in the cap­i­tal area have been “force­ful­ly evac­u­at­ed” and are “out of ser­vice” be­cause of at­tacks or pow­er out­ages, the Su­dan Doc­tors’ Syn­di­cate said, out of a to­tal of around 20. Four hos­pi­tals out­side the cap­i­tal have al­so shut down, it added in a state­ment late Mon­day.

On­ly four years ago, Su­dan in­spired hope af­ter a pop­u­lar up­ris­ing helped de­pose long-time au­to­crat­ic leader Omar al-Bashir.

But the tur­moil since, es­pe­cial­ly the 2021 coup, has frus­trat­ed the democ­ra­cy dri­ve and wrecked the econ­o­my. A third of the pop­u­la­tion — around 16 mil­lion peo­ple — now de­pends on hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance in the re­source-rich na­tion, Africa’s third largest.

Save the Chil­dren, an in­ter­na­tion­al char­i­ty, said it has tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed most of its op­er­a­tions across Su­dan. It said loot­ers raid­ed its of­fices in Dar­fur, steal­ing med­ical sup­plies, lap­tops, ve­hi­cles and a re­frig­er­a­tor. The World Food Pro­gram sus­pend­ed op­er­a­tions over the week­end af­ter three em­ploy­ees were killed in Dar­fur, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Res­cue Com­mit­tee has al­so halt­ed most op­er­a­tions.

With the U.S., Eu­ro­pean Union, African and Arab na­tions all call­ing for an end to fight­ing, the U.N. Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil was to dis­cuss the de­vel­op­ments. U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res said he was con­sult­ing with the Arab League, African Union and lead­ers in the re­gion, urg­ing any­one with in­flu­ence to press for peace.

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By JACK JEF­FERY and SAMY MAGDY

KHAR­TOUM, Su­dan (AP)