Sudan’s army advances on Khartoum amid fighting with paramilitary RSF

KHARTOUM, Sudan

The Sudanese army captured the Soba town, east of the capital Khartoum, on Monday in the latest military advance against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The Sudan Shield Forces, a group allied with the army, said that its forces had seized control of the area.

The group released a video showing its commander Abu Agla Keikel inside a police station in the town. Keikel defected from the RSF in October 2024.

The army also confirmed in a statement that its forces had seized the strategic Soba Bridge on the Blue Nile and Soba town after clashes with RSF fighters.

Social media activists posted several videos of army forces on the bridge for the first time since the breakout of the fighting in April 2023.

The capture of the bridge area would limit the movement of RSF forces in the Eastern Nile areas, where the al-Manshiya Bridge over the Blue Nile is only left for the rebel factions RSF. This bridge links the Eastern Nile area with the eastern neighborhoods of Khartoum.

The Sudanese army forces also advanced west of the Blue Nile towards the Al-Baqir area, which serves as an entrance to Khartoum from Al-Jazirah State.

The new development came as the army continued to consolidate its military gains on multiple fronts in Khartoum and the East Nile area of Bahri City, a key RSF stronghold.

On Sunday, the Sudanese army captured Alkotainh town in the White Nile State in southern Sudan.

Alkotainh, 100 kilometers south of Khartoum, was the only town controlled by the RSF in southern Sudan.

The paramilitary group still controls four of Darfur’s five states, while northern and eastern Sudan remain largely unaffected by the fighting.

In Khartoum State, which consists of three cities, the army now controls 90% of Bahri in the north, most of Omdurman in the west, and 60% of central Khartoum, where the presidential palace and international airport are located. Army forces have nearly encircled these strategic sites, while RSF fighters remain entrenched in neighborhoods in the east and south.

The Sudanese army and RSF have been fighting a war since mid-April 2023 that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 14 million, according to the UN and local authorities. Research from US universities, however, estimates the death toll at around 130,000.

Calls by the international community and the UN for an end to the war are mounting, with warnings of an impending humanitarian catastrophe as millions face famine and death due to food shortages. The conflict has spread to 13 of Sudan’s 18 states.