Sudan’s military has begun a major campaign against a powerful group fighting it in the country’s civil war, targeting areas in the capital it lost at the beginning of the conflict.
In Thursday’s strikes, government forces attacked the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) camps in the capital Khartoum, and Bahri in the north.
Sudan has been mired in war since the army and the RSF began a brutal struggle for power in April 2023, leading to what the UN has called one of the world’s worst disasters.
Up to 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict and more than 10 million people – about a fifth of the population – have been displaced from their homes.
The military escalation comes despite US-led efforts to end the fighting, which is being discussed at the UN General Assembly this week.
Residents said that the firing of guns and planes started at night and intensified in the morning.
Multiple accounts say the soldiers crossed the key bridges over the Nile River – which separated the government-controlled areas of Omdurman from the RSF-controlled areas.
RSF says it has repelled the attempt, but the sound of collisions and smoke was reported from areas in central Khartoum.
From the beginning of the war, the military controlled almost the entire capital.
Thursday’s development appears to be the government’s first significant push in months to restore some land.
The UN called for “urgent” action to protect civilians and end the fighting.
Most of the worst and most intense fighting took place in densely populated regions. Both sides accused each other of indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
“Unrelenting hostilities across the country have brought misery to millions of citizens, creating the world’s fastest-growing migration crisis,” the UN warned on Wednesday.
It noted that half of the ten million people who fled their homes were children, while at least two million sought protection in neighboring countries.
It also called Sudan “the world’s biggest hunger crisis”. There is fear of widespread famine as people cannot grow crops.
There have also been warnings of a possible massacre of non-Arabs in the western Darfur region.
The cholera epidemic is also rampant throughout the country – more than 430 people have been killed by this easily treatable disease in the past month, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
But finding treatment in those affected areas is more difficult than the conflict.
More on Sudan’s civil war from the BBC:
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