The rapidly rising levels of ethnic violence in Sudan are raising alarm about genocide as fierce fighting between warring generals of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) nears the end of its second month.

There have been numerous reports in recent days of intensifying violence in Sudan’s West Darfur region, which has previously seen decades of killings based on ethnicity.

The city of el-Geneina, which has been experiencing a communications blackout for weeks, has been a focal point of attacks by Arab nomadic tribes linked with the RSF against the non-Arab Masalit tribespeople.

The ruthless violence, which left residents sheltering indoors, fearing death if they even leave home to get food and water, has prompted local activists and observers outside the country to sound the alarm, saying what is happening is genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Some warn that, if left unchecked, the current cycle of violence could become worse than the Darfur uprising that began 20 years ago and left 300,000 dead and displaced 2.5 million as the central government empowered the RSF to fight the rebelling non-Arab tribes.

Local activists say that at least 1,100 people have been killed and more wounded during attacks in el-Geneina that began in late April, shortly after the start of the war between forces led by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

A doctors’ association in Darfur, which monitors the situation, this week compared the intensity of the violence with the massacres of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

The Sudanese Ministry of Health said on Monday that it is facing difficulties sending aid to different states, especially Darfur. International stakeholders have so far not been able to establish a humanitarian corridor into Darfur either, due to the risks.

Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) on Sunday called el-Geneina “one of the worst places on Earth”. The Darfur Bar Association said the same day that local community leaders, lawyers, medical doctors and journalists are being particularly targeted in attacks, and an unknown number of them have been killed. In North Darfur, the local governor’s office declared the city of Kutum a “disaster zone” on Tuesday after many people fled to the state’s capital of el-Fasher in dire conditions.

There have also been reports of worsening violence in the southern Kordofan region, where RSF-backed militias are fighting army forces.

Some Sudanese residents have taken to social media to post information about their missing loved ones in hopes of receiving information.