The China Mail - Sudan army breaks paramilitary siege on Khartoum HQ, reclaims oil refinery

In a statement, the army said troops in Bahri (Khartoum North) and Omdurman across the Nile River had "merged with our forces stationed at the General Command of the Armed Forces".

A military source confirmed that "the arrival of the forces from Bahri completely lifted the siege on the command".

The army added that it had "expelled" the RSF from the Jaili oil refinery north of the capital, the country's largest, which the paramilitary had claimed control of since the start of the war.

With a months-long communications blackout in place, AFP was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.

The RSF could not immediately be reached for comment, but had earlier denied the army had taken control of the Signal Corps -- a key base across the river from the military headquarters.

Since the outbreak of the war with Sudan's army in April 2023, the RSF had encircled both the Signal Corps in Khartoum North and the General Command of the Armed Forces, its headquarters just south across the Blue Nile river.

A military source had previously told AFP the army was advancing closer to Khartoum North, following days of military operations aimed at dislodging the RSF from fortified positions in the city.

This comes around two weeks after the army reclaimed the Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, securing a key crossroads between the capital and surrounding states.

Regaining access to its headquarters would be the army's biggest victory since it regained the capital's twin city of Omdurman, on the Nile's west bank, nearly a year ago.

"It allows the entry of forces and equipment into Khartoum and gives the armed forces the advantage of an open supply line," the military source told AFP, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The army and the RSF had appeared to be in a stalemate since the capture of Omdurman, with paramilitaries still in control of Khartoum North on the east bank.

They have regularly exchanged artillery fire across the river, with civilians reporting bombs and shrapnel often hitting homes.

The military source said Friday's advance will disable the RSF's capability for "counterattacks from Bahri," heralding the "complete collapse of the militia in Khartoum State."

- Torn apart -

Since the early days of the war, when the RSF quickly spread through the streets of Khartoum, the military has had to supply its forces inside the headquarters via airdrops.

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was himself trapped inside for four months, before emerging in August 2023 and fleeing to the coastal city of Port Sudan.

In what is now the de facto capital on the Red Sea, dozens took to the streets of Port Sudan cheering the army's advance, chanting "one army, one people", AFP correspondents reported.

Eyewitnesses in Omdurman reported similar celebrations, with cars honking and waving Sudanese flags through the streets.

Khartoum and its surrounding state have been torn apart by the war, with 26,000 people killed between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

Entire neighbourhoods have been emptied out and taken over by fighters as at least 3.6 million people fled the capital, according to United Nations figures.

Across the northeast African country, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and uprooted more than 12 million people in what the United Nations calls the world's largest internal displacement crisis.

Famine has been declared in parts of Sudan but the risk is spreading for millions more people, a UN-backed assessment said last month.

Before leaving office on Monday, the administration of US president Joe Biden sanctioned Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war.

That designation came about one week after Washington sanctioned RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Daglo for his role in "gross violations of human rights" in Sudan's vast western region of Darfur, where the RSF dominates.

The United States said Daglo's forces had "committed genocide".

V.Liu--ThChM