‘Khartoum is free’ says Sudan Army chief al-Burhan after airport captured

Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has declared, “Khartoum is free” hours after his forces recaptured Khartoum airport from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Al-Burhan was speaking Wednesday from the presidential palace that government forces took control of Friday in a key victory. It was his first time inside the presidential palace for nearly two years.

Earlier, soldiers also encircled areas surrounding the airport in the Sudanese capital on Wednesday, a pivotal development in a two-year-old conflict between the SAF and rival RSF, with the paramilitary’s forces fleeing across a bridge out of that part of the capital.

SAF troops “surrounded the strategic Jebel Awliya area” south of central Khartoum, the last large RSF stronghold in the area, a military source told the AFP news agency, requesting anonymity because he is not authorised to brief the media.

The army also secured both sides of the Manshiya Bridge, which crosses the Blue Nile River in Khartoum, leaving the Jebel Awliya Bridge just south of the capital as the only crossing out of the area still under RSF control.

The military, at war with the RSF since April 2023, launched a campaign this week to push the paramilitary forces out of central Khartoum.

RSF fighters had been stationed inside the airport, just east of central Khartoum’s government and business district, since the war began.

Across the city, witnesses and activists reported that RSF fighters have been retreating southwards from neighbourhoods they previously controlled, ostensibly towards Jebel Awliya.

Witnesses said that RSF had mainly stationed its forces in southern Khartoum to secure their withdrawal from the capital via bridges to the neighbouring city of Omdurman.

After battle for Khartoum, Darfur

“With the statement from the army chief [al-Burhan], it’s clear that the war is not over. After seeing the end of the battle here in Khartoum, we’re likely to see more and more fighting this time around the western region of Darfur and southwest Sudan”, .said Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum

“It is clear that the army has been making rapid progress, and rapid gains, especially when you look at where they’re located in the capital. So the advance from the army is coming from regions where they’re not only able to retake the bases. But also to take on the bases that used to belong to the RSF,”  Morgan added.

“The RSF’s power up until five months ago was quite high and now has been greatly reduced”, she said.

However, she explained that the paramilitary force still has fighters in other parts of the country.

‘The war continues’

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb from Fikra for Studies and Development in Cairo told Al Jazeera that the army’s advancement does not mean the conflict is finished.

“The end of the war means a political settlement that dismantles the RSF political institutions. The RSF is retreating towards West Sudan, towards Darfur, where they hold a significant amount of land, and this means the war continues, especially in the light of the continuous support of certain foreign powers, particularly the UAE [United Arab Emirates], who continue the supply of weapons and support to the RSF,” he said.

Elbashir Idris, an independent Sudan analyst and activist, told Al Jazeera: “The RSF’s collapse has been quicker than the army’s ability to deploy itself.”

In Khartoum, “we have seen videos yesterday of many residents, and even prisoners who were under RSF-controlled territory, freeing themselves and running with full jubilation in the streets – without seeing an RSF militiaman in sight,” he noted.

“This news [about the army retaking the airport] is very welcome to a lot of Sudanese people who have lost their homes within the capital city two years ago, and this win has come at the RSF’s collapse,” Idris added.

In nearly two years, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.