Sudan army’s chief declares “liberation of Khartoum”

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Transitional Military Council in Sudan, has declared the “liberation” of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, after deadly battles with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“It’s over, Khartoum is free from the Rapid Support Forces,” al-Burhan said in statements from the presidential palace in the capital.

On Wednesday, the Sudanese army took control of Khartoum International Airport and other strategic locations in the city,, in a major blow to the RSF.

Following the recapture of the airport, a senior military commander stated that the battles would not stop, vowing that the armed forces would continue their operations in Darfur (west) and Kordofan (central Sudan).

The Sudanese Army has been battling the RSF since April 2023.

Since April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

It has also divided the country in two, with the army holding the east and north and the RSF controlling nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

Following a year and a half of defeats, the army turned the tide late last year, pushing through central Sudan to Khartoum, from which its government was forced to flee to the Red Sea town of Port Sudan early in the war.

The RSF had so far maintained its position in Jebel Awliya, as well as the western and southern outskirts of Omdurman -- central Khartoum's twin city just across the Nile.

According to the United Nations, more than 3.5 million people were forced to flee the war-ravaged capital.

Millions more, unable or unwilling to leave, were left to face hunger, rights abuses and indiscriminate shelling of their homes by both sides.