CAIRO: About 500 children have died from hunger in Sudan — including two dozen babies in a government-run orphanage in the capital of Khartoum — since fighting erupted in the East African country in April, a leading aid group said on Tuesday.

Save the Children also said that at least 31,000 children lack access to treatment for malnutrition and related illnesses since the charity was forced to close 57 of its nutrition centers in Sudan.

Sudan was plunged into chaos after monthslong tensions between the military and a rival paramilitary force exploded into open fighting on April 15. The conflict has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Many residents live without water and electricity, and the country’s healthcare system has nearly collapsed.

“Never did we think we would see children dying from hunger in such numbers, but this is now the reality in Sudan,” said Arif Noor, Save the Children’s director for Sudan. “We are seeing children dying from entirely preventable hunger.”

More than 4.4 million people were forced to flee their homes either to safer areas in Sudan or cross into neighboring countries, according to the UN migration agency.

Save the Children said that between May and July, at least 316 children, mostly under 5 years of age, died of malnutrition or associated illnesses in the southern While Nile province. More than 2,400 more children have admitted to hospitals in the past eight months with severe acute malnutrition — the deadliest form of malnutrition, it added.

In the eastern Qadarif province, at least 132 children died from malnutrition in the government-run Children’s Hospital between April and July.

And at least 50 children, including two dozen babies, died of starvation or related illnesses in an orphanage in Khartoum in the first six weeks of the conflict as the fighting prevented Save the Children staff from accessing the building to care for them, the charity said.

Save the Children also warned that special food supplies for treating malnutrition were running critically low at 108 facilities it still operates across Sudan.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the UN-led agency responsible for famine classifications, said Sudan’s conflict and economic decline have driven about 20.3 million people — or more than 42 percent of the country’s population of over 46 million people — into high levels of acute food insecurity. Of them, about 6.3 million people live in areas that are a step away from an official famine classification, according to the agency.

Sudanese military factions battled for a third day over an army base in the capital, eyewitnesses said on Tuesday, as both sides struggle for advantage in a more than four-month war that has devastated the country.

After the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces circulated video of its soldiers claiming to have entered the base and captured tanks, army sources said they had managed to drive them out. If the army were to lose the Armored Corps base, its last stronghold in the capital Khartoum would be the army headquarters in the center of the city.