Sudan’s army has launched a major offensive in the capital, Khartoum, to regain ground held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), military sources have told Al Jazeera.
The army carried out air raids on Thursday against RSF positions in the capital and north of Khartoum in its biggest such assault in months.
Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said the army has taken control of three main bridges, including two that connect the city of Omdurman with the capital.
Its forces have “been advancing towards … the presidential palace where there has also been heavy fighting reported”, said Morgan.
The army attacked several military sites belonging to the RSF, the sources said, and the Sudanese Air Force was carrying out several flights over Khartoum.
At least four people were killed and 14 wounded during artillery shelling on Thursday morning by the RSF, which targeted residential neighbourhoods in the Karari Governorate, north of Omdurman, according to Khartoum State Health Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim.
The injured were transferred to al-No Hospital, he said.
Though the army retook some ground in Omdurman early this year, it depends mostly on artillery and air raids and has been unable to dislodge more effective RSF ground forces embedded in Khartoum.
Military sources said the assault was “in the works for months”, said Morgan, against the din of artillery and fighter jets overhead.
Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo broke out in a conflict that has so far displaced more than 10 million people – about 8.1 million people inside Sudan while about two million have been forced to flee the country, according to data from the United Nations.
“You can hear the heavy artillery now still ongoing, so it looks like the army is still fighting the RSF in several positions,” Morgan reported.
In an RSF-controlled area in Khartoum, one resident told Al Jazeera about hearing “all types of heavy artillery” coming from all directions since well before dawn.
“We’re sitting with neighbours, anticipating the next event,” the resident said, adding that there was hope that the army would retake the city as “people are fed up with the militia”.
Al Jazeera’s Morgan said later on Thursday that the RSF had withdrawn some of its forces from Omdurman to reinforce troops in Khartoum through the Jebel Aulia Bridge.
“Dozens of cars were seen moving across the bridge following the army offensive against the RSF in Khartoum. This could tip the scale back on the RSF’s side,” Morgan reported.
The RSF last weekend launched a large-scale offensive in el-Fasher after months of siege. El-Fasher is the only one of five state capitals in the vast Darfur region not yet in RSF hands.
The bloody civil war has caused a dire humanitarian crisis, but diplomatic efforts by the United States and other countries have faltered, with the army refusing to attend talks last month in Switzerland.
The army was trying to “drain the capacities and the capabilities” of the RSF, so their presence in the capital could be “minimised”, Morgan said.
“Sources say this is the right time, with the RSF busy on other fronts in North Darfur, as well as in the south and central parts of the country,” she added.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced concern on Wednesday about an “escalation” in the conflict when he met al-Burhan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Guterres “expressed deep concern about the escalation of the conflict in the Sudan, which continues to have a devastating impact on the Sudanese civilians and risks a regional spillover”, according to a UN readout of the meeting.
The push by the army, which lost control of most of the capital at the start of the conflict, came hours before al-Burhan addressed the UN meeting.
He told the General Assembly that he supported efforts to end the war in Sudan if they brought an end to the “occupation” of territory by the RSF. He said some states in the region were providing funding and fighters to the RSF, although he did not name any country.
A UN-backed assessment has warned of the risk of widespread famine in Sudan on a scale not seen anywhere in the world in decades.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 18,800 people have been killed and at least 33,000 injured since the conflict broke out in April 2023.
