ISTANBUL

Head of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said Tuesday that army forces have lifted a siege imposed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on the city of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan state in the country’s south.

“The army reopened the road to Kadugli and reached residents who had been under siege for months,” Burhan said in a brief statement cited by the state news agency SUNA.

“We congratulate the Sudanese people on opening the road to Kadugli, and we congratulate our people in Kadugli on the arrival of the armed forces,” he said, vowing that the military “will reach any place in Sudan.”

The RSF and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), had imposed the siege on the city since the early months of the war that erupted with the army on April 15, 2023.

Earlier Tuesday, military sources told Anadolu that army forces and allied armed groups entered Kadugli after clashes with the RSF and SPLM-N, breaking the siege of the state’s largest city.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF on the report.

The advance comes about a week after the army broke a similar siege on the city of Dilling, South Kordofan’s second-largest city after Kadugli.

Of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF controls all five states in the western Darfur region, except for parts of North Darfur that remain under army control. The army holds most areas of the remaining 13 states across the south, north, east and center of the country, including the capital, Khartoum.

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF has killed thousands of people and displaced millions.

*Writing by Lina Altawell