Sudan's army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, arrived at Khartoum's recaptured presidential palace on Wednesday, declaring the capital "free" of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces after nearly two years of war.
"Khartoum is free; it's done," said Burhan, Sudan's de facto leader, in a broadcast aired by state television, capping a multi-day campaign by his forces to retake central Khartoum's state institutions.
On his first visit to the former seat of government since the army seized it, Burhan marched through the war-ravaged palace in military fatigues with his fist upheld, flanked by soldiers chanting 'God is greatest' amid shattered windows and halls littered with fighters' cots.
When war broke out in April 2023 between Burhan and his former deputy, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the RSF quickly swept through the capital's government district, forcing authorities to flee to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Despite the significant blows dealt to the RSF, analysts have warned the war is far from over, with the paramilitary on Wednesday announcing a new rebel alliance in the country's south.
The army on Wednesday had cleared Khartoum's airport of RSF fighters and, according to an army source, encircled the RSF in its last major stronghold in the Khartoum area, just south of the city center.
The takeover comes a day after the army was accused of one of the war's deadliest air strikes, killing dozens in a market in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations. Witnesses said they counted 270 bodies buried.
Just south of the capital, "the remnants of the RSF militia are fleeing" across the White Nile, said the army source, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
According to the source, the paramilitaries were using the Jebel Awliya bridge, their only remaining way out of Khartoum, linking it to RSF positions west of the city and then to its strongholds in Darfur.
Across Khartoum, witnesses and activists reported this week that RSF fighters were retreating southwards.
The RSF did not respond to a request for comment.
Civilians celebrate
Since April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million, and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also divided the country in two, with the army holding the east and north and the RSF controlling nearly all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south.
On Wednesday, the RSF "officially announced a military alliance" with rebel group the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, which controls key border areas with South Sudan and Ethiopia.
Following a year and a half of defeats, the army turned the tide late last year, pushing through central Sudan to Khartoum.
The RSF had so far maintained its position in Jebel Awliya, as well as the western and southern outskirts of Omdurman -- Khartoum's twin city just across the Nile.
According to the United Nations, more than 3.5 million people have been forced to flee the capital since the start of the war.
Millions more, unable or unwilling to leave, were left to face hunger, abuses, and indiscriminate shelling of their homes by both sides.
Footage shared on social media appeared to show residents of central Khartoum celebrating the RSF's retreat.
"You have endured so much," a young fighter allied with the army tells civilians while embracing them in a video that AFP was unable to immediately verify.
In Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled, a crowd of hundreds came out in celebration of the army's victory.
They chanted "one people, one army", an AFP correspondent reported.
Osama Abdel Qader, a resident of Khartoum's Sahafa neighborhood just south of the government district, told AFP on Wednesday that "the area has been completely empty of the RSF since last night."
Rights abuses
Abdel Qader and other eyewitnesses said RSF fighters had abandoned homes they had previously occupied, in some areas taking furniture with them.
Since the war began, the RSF has been accused of looting and taking over civilian homes, with rights groups documenting systematic sexual violence and other abuses.
The United States has placed sanctions on both Burhan and Daglo for war crimes, accusing the RSF chief specifically of committing genocide in Darfur.
The United Nations has expressed grave alarm at "the continued attacks on civilians" across the country, including Monday's air strike on the town of Tora in North Darfur and an RSF artillery attack on a Khartoum mosque on Sunday.
"A market -- meant to be a place of daily life and livelihood -- turned into a scene of devastation," said UN humanitarian coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami.
Analysts have warned of the RSF's pattern of revenge attacks on civilians, while the army has been accused of allowing its allied groups to persecute civilians thought to have collaborated with the RSF.
AFP
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