Sudan’s military said it retook the Republican Palace in Khartoum, the last bastion in the capital of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), after nearly two years of fighting.
Social media videos showed its soldiers inside giving the date as the 21st day of Ramadan, which was Friday. A Sudanese military officer wearing a captain’s rank made the announcement in the video, and its details confirmed the troops were inside the compound.
The palace appeared to be in ruins in part, with soldiers’ steps crunching broken tiles underneath their boots.
The fall of the Republican Palace — a compound along the Nile River that was the seat of government before the war — marks another battlefield gain for Sudan’s military. It has made steady advances in recent months under army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan.
It means the rival RSF under Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has been expelled from the capital of Khartoum after Sudan’s war began in April 2023.
The RSF did not immediately acknowledge the loss, which likely won’t stop fighting in the war as the group and its allies still hold territory elsewhere in Sudan.
The RSF, which earlier this year began establishing a parallel government, maintains control of parts of Khartoum and neighbouring Omdurman, as well as western Sudan, where it is fighting to take over the army's last stronghold in Darfur, al-Fashir.
Capturing the capital could hasten the army's full takeover of central Sudan, and harden the east-west territorial division of the country between the two forces.
Both sides have vowed to continue fighting for the remainder of the country, and no efforts at peace talks have materialized.
The war has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country. Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll.
