Residents Jubilate As Sudanese Army Drives RSF From Central Khartoum

Sudan’s residents on Wednesday were in a jubilation mood after the army drove its rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from most of Khartoum city.

The army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan also toured the presidential palace and airport, marking a major military gain though the wider war looks far from over.

The residents said RSF troops had withdrawn, and the army had deployed across the city centre after two years of devastating conflict that is splitting the massive country into rival zones of control, with the RSF still deeply embedded in western Sudan.

Burhan flew into Khartoum airport, located in the centre of the capital, and toured the presidential palace, his ruling council said in a statement, in a demonstration of the army’s control over the area.

An army statement said his flight into the airport was the first to land there since the outbreak of war in April 2023.

The army also said it had gained control of a major RSF base south of the capital that it said was the paramilitary group’s last major stronghold in Khartoum state.

It released drone footage of scores of people walking across a dam that it said showed RSF forces retreating across the Nile.

Reuters was not able to confirm that the footage showed RSF forces.

Recent army gains in central Sudan, retaking districts of the capital and other territory, come as the RSF has consolidated its control in the west, hardening battle lines and threatening to move the country towards a de facto partition.

The war, which erupted two years ago as the country was attempting a democratic transition, has caused what the U.N. calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, with famine in several areas as well as outbreaks of disease.

It has driven 12.5 million people from their homes, many of them seeking refuge in neighbouring countries.

The army and RSF had at one point been in a fragile partnership together, jointly staging a coup in 2021 that derailed the transition from the Islamist rule of Omar al-Bashir, a longtime autocrat who was ousted in 2019.