Khartoum

Aid groups are warning that Sudan's "man-made famine" could be even worse than feared, with the most catastrophic death toll the world has seen in decades, without more global pressure on warring generals.

A U.N.-backed study said Thursday that 755,000 people are on the brink of starvation in Sudan, a death toll not seen since the 1980s when famine in Ethiopia shocked the world.

Sudan's nine-month-old war has so far largely spared the country's east. But with the frontline inching ever closer, and reports of military training camps across the border in Eritrea, the fragile peace there is in jeopardy.

Sudan's war has already killed thousands, including between 10,000 and 15,000 in a single city in the western Darfur region, according to U.N. experts.

Sudan's rival generals have returned to the negotiating table in Saudi Arabia, but the fighting shows no sign of easing as they wrestle to control the country's second-largest city.

Sudan is on the brink of "full-scale civil war," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned, three months after the army and a powerful paramilitary force clashed in the capital, two neighboring towns, the western Darfur region and other parts of the country.

Desperately needed relief supplies are being confiscated by the warring parties in Sudan as fighting spreads to areas previously untouched by the 10-week-old conflict between top generals, aid agencies said on Friday.

An airstrike in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Saturday killed at least 17 people, including five children, health officials said, as fighting continued between rival generals seeking to control the country.

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.

Witnesses in the Sudanese capital reported clashes and air strikes minutes after a one-week ceasefire was to have come into force to let through life-saving humanitarian assistance.

Air raids, gunfire and explosions rocked Sudan's capital on Sunday ahead of a one-week ceasefire agreed by rival generals, the latest in a series of truces that have been systematically violated.

Exhausted Sudanese and foreigners joined growing crowds at Sudan's main seaport Tuesday, waiting to be evacuated from the chaos-stricken nation. After more than two weeks of fighting, areas of the capital of Khartoum appear increasingly abandoned.