PORT SUDAN: The Sudanese army said Sunday it had broken the siege imposed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on a key southern Sudanese state capital since the war began in April 2023.
Army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement that forces in North Kordofan state had “managed to reopen the road to El-Obeid and merge” with soldiers east of the city.
El-Obeid — the heart of Sudan’s Kordofan region — sits at a crucial crossroads connecting Khartoum to the country’s western region of Darfur, which the RSF has all but conquered.
“El-Obeid’s strategic importance, especially its airport and its position linking western Sudan with the center and south, makes today’s operation one of the most critical militarily,” a military source said.
Sudan’s finance minister in the government described breaking the siege as a turning point in the conflict.
“This strategic victory represents a qualitative shift in the path of a larger triumph,” Gibril Ibrahim said in a post on Facebook.
He added that it is also “a significant step toward lifting the siege” on North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher, which has been under RSF siege since May.
Reopening the routes would allow the delivery of essential food and medicine to the Kordofan region, he added.
Witnesses said that thousands of residents had taken to the streets of El-Obeid to celebrate.
The war, which has pitted army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan against the RSF for nearly two years, has killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 12 million, and created the world’s largest hunger crisis.
Famine has been declared in three displacement camps in the western region of Darfur and parts of the Nuba Mountains in the south.
According to a UN-backed assessment, it is expected to spread to five more areas by May.
Sudan “will not accept” any recognition of a parallel government, Foreign Minister Ali Youssef said on Sunday at a press conference in Cairo.
“We will not accept any other country recognizing a so-called parallel government,” Youssef said, a day after the RSF and a coalition of political and armed groups signed a charter to form a rival administration in rebel-held areas.
Among those who agreed to the charter was a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, which controls parts of the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in the country’s south.
Abdel Rahim Dagalo, deputy and brother of RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — who was notably absent — also signed.
The charter calls for “a secular, democratic, decentralized state based on freedom, equality, and justice, without bias toward any cultural, ethnic, religious, or regional identity.”
It also outlines plans for a “new, unified, professional, national army” with a military doctrine that “reflects the diversity and plurality characterizing the Sudanese state.”
The proposed government aims to end the war, ensure unhindered humanitarian aid, and integrate armed groups into a single, national force.
