Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Sunday that its fighters had captured the army headquarters in the city of El Fasher, the armed forces' last stronghold in the Darfur region in the west of the war-torn nation.
News of the garrison's fall into RSF hands comes 17 months after the paramilitary laid siege to the city in northern Darfur.
The loss of El Fasher, which has yet to be confirmed by the army, hands the Sudanese Armed Forces a major setback in its two-year-old civil war against the RSF. It also enshrines the de facto division of Sudan.
The garrison was home to the army's 6th Division and allied militias made up of former rebels and local fighters. It had been running short on supplies and had been receiving food and ammunition via air drops as the RSF in recent months intensified its attacks on the city, where some 200,000 people have been trapped while enduring hunger and disease.
An RSF statement said the paramilitary has inflicted heavy casualties among army troops and allied militiamen and destroyed military equipment.
“The liberation of the 6th Division in El Fasher today marks a decisive turning point in the course of the battles waged by our gallant forces and outlines the features of the new state that all Sudanese will take part in building,” it said.
Video clips posted online by the RSF purported to show its fighters celebrating their victory inside the garrison. Partially damaged buildings in the background could be seen riddled with bullet holes.
“Today is a historic day,” yelled one fighter. “Today, we hoisted the banner of freedom.”
The capture of El Fasher comes as the war in Sudan is halfway through its third year. The conflict, which broke out in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than 13 million people.
Nearly 30 million others are said by the UN to be facing food shortages as a result of the war, which is essentially a fight for domination between army chief and de factor leader of Sudan, Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, and RSF commander, Gen Mohamed Dagalo.
Darfur is a territory about the size of France. The paramilitary also controls parts of Kordofan in the south-west. The army controls the capital Khartoum, as well as the central, eastern and northern regions.
Sudan is now effectively run by two rival governments – one backed by the army in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, and the other, loyal to the RSF, in the city of Neyala, also in Darfur.
The RSF's forerunner is the Darfur-based militia known as Janjaweed, which fought on the side of the government during the civil war that tore the region apart in the 2000s. That began when ethnic Africans rose against the government to demand an end to perceived discrimination by the political and economic establishment in northern Sudan.
The RSF claims to be fighting the army in the current civil war on behalf of what it calls the marginalised inhabitants of Sudan's outlying regions such as Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile in the south. The army, for its part, professes to be fighting a mutinous militia that must be vanquished before peace can return to the vast Afro-Arab nation.
Over the weekend, the United States convened Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian officials to discuss a possible peace plan to end the war.
The military-backed government said on Friday that a Sudanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Moheideen Salem was in Washington for talks with US officials "to continue the dialogue on issues of mutual interest, including supporting peace in Sudan".
The statement made no mention of the mediation bid by the US and its three Arab allies. Sudan's army-led Sovereign Council also denied reports that its representatives and the RSF were engaging in indirect talks.
Al Shafie Ahmed reported from Kampala, Uganda
