Sudan army says enters key paramilitary-held Al-Jazira state capital / Photo: © AFP
Sudan army says enters key paramilitary-held Al-Jazira state capital
The Sudanese military and allied armed groups launched an offensive Saturday on key Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, entering the city after more than a year of paramilitary control, the army said.
In a statement, the armed forces "congratulated" the Sudanese people on "our forces entering the city of Wad Madani this morning".
Sudan's army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries have been at war since April 2023, leading to what the UN calls the world's worst displacement crisis and declarations of famine in parts of the northeast African country.
A video the army shared on social media showed fighters claiming to be inside Wad Madani, after an army source told AFP they had "stormed the city's eastern entrance".
The footage appeared to be shot on the western side of Hantoub Bridge in northern Wad Madani, which has been under RSF control since December 2023.
The office of army-allied government spokesman and Information and Culture Minister Khalid al-Aiser said the army had "liberated" the city.
With a months-long communications blackout in place, AFP was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.
Wad Madani is strategic because it is a crossroads of key supply highways linking several states, and is the nearest major town to the capital Khartoum.
"The army and allied fighters have spread out around us across the city's streets," one eyewitness told AFP from his home in central Wad Madani, requesting anonymity for his safety.
- Celebrations -
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes including targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
But the paramilitaries specifically have been notorious for summary killings, rampant looting, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The United States on Tuesday said the RSF had "committed genocide" and imposed sanctions on its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo.
The local resistance committee, one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer groups across the country coordinating frontline aid, hailed the Wad Madani advance as an end to "the tyranny" of the RSF.
Eyewitnesses in army-controlled cities across Sudan reported dozens taking to the streets in celebration.
Chants of "one army, one people" broke out in an army-controlled area of Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum 200 kilometres (124 miles) north of Wad Madani, an eyewitness told AFP, requesting anonymity for their safety.
Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million people, more than three million of whom have fled across borders.
In the early months of the war, more than half a million people had sought shelter in Al-Jazira, before a lightning RSF offensive displaced upwards of 300,000 in December 2023, according to the UN.
Most have been repeatedly displaced since, as the feared paramilitaries moved further and further south.
"We're going back!" crowds in the de facto capital of Port Sudan shouted in the street on Saturday after the army's announcements.
The RSF still holds the rest of the central agricultural state, as well as nearly all of Sudan's western Darfur region and swathes of the country's south.
The army controls the north and east, as well as parts of the capital Khartoum.
S.Mitchell--TNT
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