The Sudanese army recaptured Khartoum airport and surrounding areas, military sources said on Wednesday, marking another gain in its two-year-old war with a rival armed group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Sudan's army said in a statement it had also taken control of the Tiba al-Hassanab camp in Jabal Awliya, describing this as the RSF's main base in central Sudan and its last stronghold in Khartoum.
The army secured both sides of Manshiya bridge, which crosses the Blue Nile in Khartoum, leaving the Jabel Awliya bridge just south of the capital as the only crossing out of the area still under RSF control.
The Sudanese army had long been on the back foot in a conflict that threatens to partition the country and has caused a humanitarian disaster.
But it has recently made gains and has retaken territory from the RSF in the centre of the country.
The military launched a campaign this week to push the paramilitary forces out of central Khartoum after seizing control of the presidential palace in the capital on Friday.
Sudan army reclaims Presidential Palace in major gain against rebels
Witnesses said on Wednesday that the RSF had mainly stationed its troops in southern Khartoum to secure their withdrawal from the capital via bridges to the neighbouring city of Omdurman.
RSF fighters had been based inside the airport, just east of central Khartoum's government and business district, since the war began.
Across the city, eyewitnesses and activists reported this week that RSF fighters were retreating southwards from neighbourhoods they previously controlled, ostensibly towards Jabel Awliya.
The United Nations and the African Union have repeatedly called the situation in Sudan the world's largest humanitarian crisis, with famine in several locations and disease across the country of 50 million people.
Sudan war is world's 'worst humanitarian crisis', the African Union says
The war erupted in April 2023, as Sudan was planning a transition to democratic rule.
The army and RSF had joined forces after forcing Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019 and later in ousting the civilian leadership.
(with newswires)
