Sudanese army recaptures presidential palace after nearly two years of fighting

Sudan’s army announced on Friday that it had retaken the Republican Palace in Khartoum from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a significant development after nearly two years of fighting.

A Sudanese military officer wearing a captain’s epaulettes made the announcement in video shared on social media showed soldiers inside the partially ruined palace. The footage was timestamped with the 21st day of Ramadan — that is, Friday morning.

Soldiers carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers could be seen chanting: “God is the greatest!”

In a post on the social platform X, Khaled al-Aiser, Sudan’s information minister, said the military had retaken the palace.

“Today the flag is raised, the palace is back and the journey continues until victory is complete,” he wrote.

Palace's fall a symbolic moment

The seizure of the Republican Palace, a compound along the Nile River surrounded by government ministries, is a major symbolic victory for Sudan's military.

The RSF captured the palace at the start of the war in April 2023, and retained control of its grounds despite shelling and firing from the Sudanese military.

Its fall means the paramilitary's forces have mostly been expelled from the capital.

However, the palace's fall likely will not spell the end of Sudan's war, which has killed more than 28,000 people and forced millions to flee their homes.

The RSF still holds territory in Sudan's western Darfur region and elsewhere. On Thursday, the group claimed it had seized control of the Sudanese city of al-Maliha, a strategic desert settlement near the borders of Chad and Libya.

Sudan's military acknowledged fighting around al-Maliha, but said it had not lost the city.

The northeastern African nation has faced years of chaos and war since a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

A short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when the RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, mounted a military coup in 2021.

The Sudanese military under Army Chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan have made critical advances against the RSF since the start of this year, retaking a key refinery north of the capital of Khartoum and pushing in on RSF positions.

Both the Sudanese military and RSF have faced allegations of human rights abuses since the war began, which they have denied. Rights groups and the UN accuse the RSF and allied Arab militias of again attacking ethnic African groups.

Al-Bashir, meanwhile, is facing charges at the International Criminal Court over carrying out a genocidal campaign in the early 2000s in the western Darfur region with the Janjaweed, the precursor to the RSF.