'Khartoum is free,' Sudan's army chief declares
Fighters loyal to the army patrol a market area in Khartoum (Photo: AFP)
Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arrived by plane in Khartoum on Wednesday as his military said it had recaptured the airport from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“Khartoum is free,” Sudan’s de facto leader said in a broadcast aired by state television, as he toured the reclaimed presidential palace, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Burhan’s arrival, also reported in an armed forces statement, signalled the airport’s recapture from rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a crucial step towards reclaiming the capital city in the army’s two-year-old war with the RSF.
The army seized the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum on Friday, an important symbolic advance after two years of a conflict that is splitting the massive country into rival zones of control.
On Wednesday, the army said it had gained control of Tiba al-Hassanab camp south of the capital, which it described as the RSF’s last base in central Sudan and last stronghold in Khartoum State.
The military sources said the army was encircling the airport, which is located in the city centre, and surrounding areas.
Witnesses said the RSF had focused its troops in southern Khartoum, apparently to secure their withdrawal from the city via bridges to the neighbouring city of Omdurman.
The army later 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 and the RSF did not immediately comment on Wednesday’s military developments.
In an apparent sign of the army’s confidence in its hold over central Khartoum, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appeared in an Al Jazeera television news broadcast on Wednesday touring the captured presidential palace.
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.
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