In Sudan's capital, risking death in search of water

Fighting in Sudan has left hundreds of thousands of Khartoum residents without running water, with some forced to risk their lives and seek it out during brief lulls in violence.

After nearly six weeks of street battles between forces loyal to rival generals and with temperatures regularly topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), many inhabitants of the capital's northern suburbs are in desperate need of drinking water.

On April 15, when fighting broke out between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the station supplying several districts of North Khartoum with running water was damaged.

Since then, about 300,000 of its inhabitants have not seen a drop of water run from their taps. Some have reopened wells or used pots to draw water from the Nile River.

"At the start of the war, we took water from the wells of the factories in the industrial zone, but after a week, the paramilitaries captured it," resident Adel Mohammed told AFP.

As clashes engulfed the area and battles were taking place in residential buildings and hospitals, Mohammed had to wait days before being able to venture out and fetch water.

Now, he and his neighbours wait for the clashes to momentarily subside to take an assortment of pots, basins and jugs to the banks of the Nile, which winds through Khartoum's suburbs.

Together, they fill a van and return to distribute a few litres each to families remaining in the neighbourhood.

But many others have left.

"It was the lack of water and not the bombardments and the fighting that forced me to abandon my house," said Rashed Hussein, who fled with his family to Madani, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) south of Khartoum.

Hussein, one of more than a...