Sudan’s army begins major offensive to reclaim capital Khartoum from paramilitary forces
Sudan’s army has launched a major offensive in the capital Khartoum to retake ground held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a report says, more than a year after a deadly war broke out between the two sides.
The army of Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the de facto ruler of the African country, on Thursday conducted airstrikes against RSF positions in Khartoum and north of the volatile city in its biggest such assault in months, Al Jazeera reported.
According to the report, the army has managed to take control of three main bridges, including two that connect the city of Omdurman with the capital.
In mid-April last year, an ongoing fighting began between troops of Al-Burhan’s military government and those from the RSF, led by Burhan's former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, internally displacing millions of people so far.
“We know the army was able to take over the eastern part of Nile Bridge, that’s the bridge that connects the city of Omdurman to the city of Khartoum, and they’ve been advancing towards Nile Street, towards the presidential palace where there has also been heavy fighting reported,” said an Al Jazeera journalist, reporting from Khartoum.
Although the army regained some territory in Khartoum’s sister city of Omdurman earlier this year, it primarily relies on artillery and airstrikes and has not yet managed to remove the more effective RSF ground forces entrenched in the capital.
The bloody civil war that broke out in April 2023 has led to a severe humanitarian crisis. However, diplomatic initiatives by some foreign countries have stalled, as the army declined to participate in discussions last month in Switzerland.
Amid the 2023 Sudan war, the military government has largely moved to Port Sudan due to heavy combat in Khartoum, prompting many to refer to Port Sudan as the country’s de facto capital.
Port Sudan, located on the Red Sea in eastern Sudan, is the country’s primary seaport and accounts for 90 percent of the nation’s international trade.
Burhan and Dagalo seized full power in a 2021 coup, but their subsequent tense relations have plunged Sudan into even greater chaos and deeper turmoil during the past 17 months.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused by human rights groups inside and outside the African country of war crimes, including targeting civilians, torturing prisoners, and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas across Sudan.
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