Sudan’s Army Says It Seized Key Buildings in Khartoum after Retaking the Republican Palace
SMA NEWS – KHARTOUM
Sudan ’s military on Saturday consolidated its grip on the capital, retaking more key government buildings a day after it gained control of the Republican Palace from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese military, said troops expelled the RSF from the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service and Corinthia Hotel in central Khartoum.
The army also retook the headquarters of the Central Bank of Sudan and other government and educational buildings in the area, Abdullah said. Hundreds of RSF fighters were killed while trying to flee the capital city, he said.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
The army’s gain came as a Sudanese pro-democracy activist group said RSF fighters had killed at least 45 people in a city in the western region of Darfur.
On Friday, the military retook the Republican Palace, the prewar seat of the government, in a major symbolic victory for the Sudanese military in its nearly two years of war against the RSF.
A drone attack on the palace Friday believed to have been launched by the RSF killed two journalists and a driver with Sudanese state television, according to the ministry of information. Lt. Col. Hassan Ibrahim, from the military’s media office, was also killed in the attack, the military said.
Volker Perthes, former UN envoy for Sudan, the latest military advances will force the RSF to withdraw to its stronghold in the western region of Darfur.
“The army has gained an important and significant victory in Khartoum militarily and politically,” Perthes told The Associated Press, adding that the military will soon clear the capital and its surrounding areas from the RSF.
But the advances don’t mean the end of the war as the RSF holds territory in the western Darfur region and elsewhere. Perthes argued that the war will likely turn into an insurgency between the Darfur-based RSF and the military-led government in the capital.
“The RSF will be largely restricted to Darfur … We will return to the early 2000s,” he said, in reference to the conflict between rebel groups and the Khartoum government, then led by former President Omar al-Bashir.
