Sudan's army recaptured the presidential palace on Friday, marking a significant turning point in a brutal two-year civil war, which has killed as many as 150,000 people and displaced 12 million.
Footage released by the Sudanese army showed triumphant soldiers brandishing their rifles in the air and cheering in the battered grounds of the palace after days of intense fighting with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who had occupied Sudan's seat of power since the war erupted in April 2023.
Through a megaphone in the complex, soldiers announced "The republican palace has now returned to the arms of the homeland" in footage posted on local Sudanese media.
"Today the flag is raised, the palace is back and the journey continues until victory is complete," Khalid al-Aleisir, Sudan's information minister, wrote on X.
The recapture of the palace from the RSF marked a major turning point in the conflict, and comes amid steps by the RSF to establish a parallel government, an idea that countries including the US and Egypt have denounced.
Last week the leader of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, vowed his fighters would remain and defend their base in the palace amid the army's advance, in a video released on social media.
In a Friday morning statement on Telegram, the RSF claimed that the battle for the palace was "not over yet" and that its forces would continue to fight.
The RSF has dominated the capital for most of the war, with the army forced to set up a wartime capital at Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. But Khartoum state is now almost entirely under the army's control, including most of eastern and northern Sudan.
The army has made steady gains elsewhere in RSF-controlled territory over the last year, spurring hope for the thousands of people desperate to return home.
The RSF are now concentrated mainly in the West. Violence is still raging in Darfur, where earlier this year previous US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the RSF and allied Arab militias of committing a genocide against African ethnic groups.
Fighting continues to rage across Sudan, with devastating consequences. The humanitarian crisis is the worst in the world with hundreds of thousands suffered from famine according to independent experts. In Darfur, the largest refugee camp in the Sudan, hosting more than half a million people has been under seige by RSF fighters for several months.
Previously Sudan' warring factions were allies that united after a historic revolution in 2019 overthrew longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. They promised a transition to democracy — but instead toppled the country's transitional civilian government in a second coup in 2021. But the erstwhile allies then differed over plans for a new transition and the integration of the RSF rebel group into the regular army.
Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese military, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have been engaged in a power struggle over control of the resource-rich nation that sits at the vital crossroads between North Africa, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.
Even as soldiers celebrated their recapture of the palace, the RSF launched a drone attack in the palace complex, killing an army spokesman, a soldier, and three members of a Sudanese state TV crew, filming the victory.
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