Sudan’s army retakes Khartoum
airport from paramilitary RSF
Development follows the recapture of presidential palace last week, in key victory for armed forces.
Sudan’s army has recaptured Khartoum airport from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), “fully securing it”, according to military sources.
Soldiers also encircled areas surrounding the airport in the Sudanese capital on Wednesday, a key development in a two-year-old conflict between the armed forces and rival RSF.
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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 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, after recapturing the presidential palace in a key victory on Friday.
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.
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