Sudan’s military said on Saturday that it had regained control of nearly all of Khartoum North, as it intensified its offensive aimed at reclaiming full control of the capital from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The army, at war with the RSF since April 2023, has in recent weeks won back large swathes of the capital and its surrounding areas from the paramilitaries.
On Saturday, the military said it had recaptured Kafouri, a key district in Khartoum North, after pushing the paramilitaries to the outskirts of the city also known as Bahri.
The district, one of greater Khartoum’s wealthiest, had been a key base for the paramilitary group, housing properties linked to senior RSF leaders, including Abdel Rahim Daglo, the brother and deputy of RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
In a statement, military spokesman Nabil Abdullah said army forces and their allies on Friday pushed out “remnants of the Daglo terrorist militias,” from Kafouri and other areas 15 kilometres to the east in Sharq El Nil.
On Thursday, a military source told AFP the army was advancing towards the centre of Khartoum, while eyewitnesses reported clashes there and explosions in the south of the capital.
The developments mark one of the army’s most significant advances since the war broke out between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former ally Daglo’s RSF, which quickly seized much of Khartoum and other strategic areas.
Fears of reprisals
However, as fighting rages on in the capital, Amnesty International raised concerns Friday over potential reprisals in areas recently recaptured by the army.
The rights group cited reports of the circulation of lists targeting activists, human rights defenders, medical and humanitarian workers, accused of being “partners of the RSF”.
In South Belt, a neighbourhood in Khartoum, the RSF on Saturday detained two members of a local volunteering rescue group at gunpoint from Bashair Hospital – the last partially functioning facility in the area, the group said in a statement.
On Thursday, the RSF had also reportedly detained the manager of Bashair Hospital as well as the head of a soup kitchen and a volunteer, according to local rescuers.
Last week, the UN human rights office documented at least 18 civilian deaths in Bahri since the army began its advance there in late January.
Following the army’s takeover of Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani last month, mass executions against civilians were reported.
Human rights groups have accused the army and allied militias of extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, and physical and psychological torture, particularly targeting communities suspected of RSF ties.
Though the RSF has become notorious for alleged ethnic-based violence – leading the United States last month to accuse it of genocide – reports have also emerged of civilians being targeted on the basis of ethnicity in army-controlled areas.
Air strikes in Darfur
Elsewhere, the military has intensified its operations against paramilitaries in the vast western region of Darfur.
In the RSF-controlled Central Darfur state capital Zalingei, a military air strike on a residential neighbourhood killed three siblings and injured three other family members, according to a local group representing displaced people and refugees in the region.
The city has been a stronghold for rebels and armed groups other than the RSF, serving as a base for launching attacks against the state.
The Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees, a local civil society group, said on Saturday that the army air strike also destroyed homes in the area.
Further south, in the RSF-held South Darfur state capital Nyala, military air strikes killed 57 people within two days last week, according to medical sources at a hospital.
While the RSF holds sway over much of Darfur, the army has consolidated its grip on the country’s north and east as well as parts of the centre.
The conflict has devastated the country, displacing more than 12 million and plunging Sudan into the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded” according to the International Rescue Committee.
