Sudan’s Army Launches Operation to Retake Capital

The latest outbreak of fighting comes as nations gathered at the U.N. General Assembly called for an end to the war and for aid to be fast-tracked to millions in need.

Sudan’s military launched a major operation in the capital, Khartoum, on Thursday, a senior Sudanese military official said, in an effort to regain territory it lost during the early months of a civil war that has torn apart one of Africa’s largest countries.

The offensive began just hours before Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York, blaming the opposition forces and their international backers for the devastation the conflict has caused.

“The war began with an attempt to seize power through force,” he said. But “with time, it has transformed into a total war against the Sudanese people and their state.”

The war began 17 months ago, when General al-Burhan and his rival, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, turned their forces on each other.

It set off a humanitarian crisis in the northeast African nation that is now spreading across borders. More than half of Sudan’s 48 million people are enduring acute hunger, and 10 million have been forced from their homes and fled within the country, into neighboring countries like Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, and even farther abroad.

While United States-mediated peace talks last month opened up some routes that had been blocked to deliveries of critical aid, the army failed to show up at the talks, and hopes for a cease-fire are remote.

On Thursday, the military carried out artillery and airstrikes against several areas in the center of the capital that were in the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, according to a senior Sudanese military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He said that they also deployed troops on the ground and secured two bridges that connect Khartoum to the adjoining cities of Omdurman and Bahri along the Nile.

A spokesman for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Video broadcast on Sudanese and Arab television showed smoke billowing from the distance as the sound of gunfire and heavy artillery rang in the air. The footage could not be independently verified, and it was not immediately clear whether the army had secured the areas or bridges where they had attacked. Telecommunication networks remained down in Khartoum and surrounding areas.

The offensive in the capital got underway as Sudan’s federal health ministry reported 386 new cases of cholera on Thursday. Some 473 people have died since the outbreak began in July, the ministry said in a statement on social media.

Speaking at the General Assembly in New York, General al-Burhan accused the Rapid Support Forces of being a “terrorist” outfit that was receiving political and logistical support from countries in the region.

He did not name any countries backing them, but the United Arab Emirates has been accused of secretly backing the paramilitary forces and fanning the war, allegations that the Emiratis deny. Other countries, like Egypt, are supporting the army.

General al-Burhan also said he would back a peace initiative if the paramilitary forces laid down their weapons and vacated the areas where they are in control.

But in a videotaped speech published on social media, General al-Hamdan called General al-Burhan a “coup leader” and said his presence at the General Assembly “serves the agenda of those advocating for the ongoing war in Sudan.”

The military lost most of the capital when the war began in April last year, and has been battling the paramilitary forces in the neighboring cities of Omdurman and Bahri. The army has remained in control of large parts of the country’s east and has, along with the government and nongovernmental agencies, moved its base to Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea.

Besides dominating the capital, the paramilitary group has extended its control over the western region of Darfur, where human rights groups have accused them of carrying out abuses amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The group denies any such attacks.

In recent months, the fighting between the two rival military groups has shifted to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The paramilitary forces and their allies have laid siege to the city since April, with the battle entrapping civilians, destroying hospitals and leaving many displaced people without food or water.

In August, famine was officially declared in a displacement camp near El Fasher, the first such declaration in Africa since 2020.

The fighting in El Fasher has escalated in the past few weeks, and this past weekend, at least 20 civilians were killed in a market, Volker Türk, the U.N. Human Rights chief, said in a statement. Mr. Türk said his office also documented abductions, summary executions and sexual and gender-based violence carried out by the paramilitary group in El Fasher and warned of “a high risk of ethnically targeted violations and abuses” if the city fell.

But as the violence escalates, world leaders gathered at the U.N. General Assembly have been urging the generals to silence the guns and avert an even more protracted crisis.

Abdalrahman Altayeb contributed reporting from Port Sudan.