Sudan’s military retakes the presidential palace in Khartoum, putting a blow to the Speedy Help Forces in a key symbolic victory.
Sudan’s military and its supporters are celebrating throughout the nation after troops recaptured the presidential palace within the capital, Khartoum.
Friday’s victory is maybe the military’s most symbolic since launching a key counteroffensive in opposition to the paramilitary Speedy Help Forces (RSF) in September final yr.
The RSF continues to regulate pockets in southern Khartoum, however has misplaced a lot of the capital since Sudan erupted right into a civil battle in April 2023.
The event comes simply days after RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo launched a video urging his fighters not to surrender the palace.
Civilians have usually welcomed the military as liberators regardless of some stories of army-aligned militias finishing up human rights abuses following RSF withdrawals.
The RSF has dedicated numerous atrocities in Sudan, together with in Khartoum.
A latest report by the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), discovered that RSF fighters had detained not less than 10,000 individuals in Khartoum for the reason that begin of the battle till June final yr.
“In areas the RSF controls, they kill individuals, rape ladies and destroy all humanity. Each time the military arrives, individuals turn out to be glad as a result of they really feel safer. Even the youngsters are joyous,” mentioned Yousef, a younger Sudanese man.
A unique situation outdoors Khartoum
The military’s seize of the presidential palace raises fears that Sudan is more and more approaching a de facto partition, say analysts.
The RSF is already backing a parallel authorities and stays accountable for 4 of the 5 areas within the sprawling area of Darfur, which is roughly the scale of France.
The RSF just lately captured the strategic desert metropolis al-Maliha in North Darfur, which is the final area the place the military and its aligned armed teams nonetheless have some management.
Regardless of the achieve, the RSF is struggling to seize el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur the place the military nonetheless has a garrison.
Sharath Srinivasan, an skilled on Sudan and a professor at Cambridge College, informed Al Jazeera that Sudan seems to be heading to a “Libya situation”, referencing the cut up in governance between two competing authorities who’re aligned with an internet of armed teams and militias.
“It feels the geographic bifurcation is getting stronger, besides el-Fasher in fact. RSF has to safe el-Fasher to assert a de facto state, which isn’t sure in any respect,” he mentioned.
Time for peace?
The military has lengthy refused to have interaction in peace talks with the RSF and has repeatedly mentioned it plans to recapture all the nation.
The RSF has additionally used diplomacy as a canopy to escalate army operations in Sudan, analysts beforehand informed Al Jazeera. In January final yr, Hemedti signed a “Declaration of Rules” with an ostensibly antiwar coalition generally known as Taqaddum.
Hemedti then visited a number of heads of state throughout Africa whereas his forces continued to pillage, kill and terrorise civilians in Sudan’s Gezira state, a serious breadbasket.
Each side have just lately promised to maintain preventing, elevating fears that clashes may intensify within the west of the nation, notably within the Kordofan and Darfur areas.
Preventing might also escalate in Khartoum because of the vary of subtle weapons pouring into the nation. Simply moments after the military celebrated regaining the presidential palace, a drone struck and killed three journalists within the space, it mentioned.
Ongoing preventing may spin huge areas of Sudan deeper into turmoil. The battle has already triggered the most important humanitarian disaster on the earth by most measures.
Tens of hundreds of individuals have died, hundreds have gone lacking and hundreds of thousands are affected by catastrophic ranges of meals insecurity.