In its biggest operation to regain ground in the 17-month war, Sudan’s army launched artillery and airstrikes in Sudan’s capital on Thursday, witnesses and military sources said.
Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting to gain territory.
The push by the army, which lost control of most of the capital at the start of the conflict, came ahead of an address by its commander, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Burhan said any peace efforts depended on the RSF laying down arms.
He said unnamed countries were backing the RSF with men, money and weapons, but said the army was “proceeding to defeat and dislodge these aggressors, no matter how much assistance and support they find”.
In the capital, witnesses reported heavy bombardments and clashes as army troops tried to cross bridges across the Nile connecting the three adjoining cities that make up the greater capital: Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri.
“The army is carrying out heavy artillery strikes and airstrikes on Halfaya and Shambat,” Ahmed Abdalla, a 48-year-old resident, told Reuters by phone, referring to areas of Bahri close to the river. “The sounds of explosions are very loud.”
Video footage showed black smoke rising above the capital and the booms of the battle could be heard in the background.
Army sources said their forces had crossed bridges in Khartoum and Bahri.
The RSF told Reuters it had thwarted the army’s attempt to cross two bridges to Khartoum. Reuters could not independently confirm the accounts.
Though the army retook some ground in Omdurman early this year, it depends mostly on artillery and airstrikes and has been unable to dislodge nimble RSF ground forces embedded in other parts of the capital.
The RSF has also continued to make advances in other parts of Sudan in recent months in a conflict that has displaced more than 10 million people, driven parts of the country to extreme hunger or famine, and drawn in foreign powers that have supplied both sides with material support.
