Sudan’s Military Is Driving Rival Fighters Out of Khartoum, a Major Shift in Civil War

Paramilitary fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces began withdrawing from the battle-torn capital of Khartoum in large numbers on Wednesday, fleeing a city they had occupied since a ruinous war broke out nearly two years ago.

The capture of the city by Sudan’s military marks a dramatic turning point in what is currently Africa’s largest war. The Rapid Support Forces, known as the R.S.F., is likely to withdraw to its stronghold in Darfur, in the west of the country, according to analysts.

Surveillance drone footage circulated by Sudan’s military showed hundreds of R.S.F. fighters crossing a dam on the Nile at Jebel Aulia, south of the capital — their last remaining escape route.

Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a military spokesman, said the military had captured a major R.S.F. camp near the dam. “This was their last remaining camp in Khartoum,” he said. “A few remnants remain in pockets here and there. They will soon be destroyed.”

The two generals who lead Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces, once allies, went to war nearly two years ago over a dispute about a plan for the R.S.F. paramilitary troops to be absorbed by the military.

The fighting has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 13 million, sending nearly four million fleeing to neighboring countries — amounting to the world’s largest displacement crisis. Refugees have told of fleeing rapes, massacres and starvation.

Videos posted to social media showed civilians celebrating as Sudanese military forces arrived into the south of Khartoum, hours after the paramilitaries had fled.

In Kalakla, 10 miles south of the city center, civilians poured onto the streets, whooping and cheering, to hail Sudanese military forces who arrived on motorbikes.

The sudden withdrawal comes five days after the army captured the presidential palace in central Khartoum, a key symbolic and strategic victory that signaled a momentous change in the direction of the war.

Since then, the army has steadily seized control of the capital, taking control of the devastated city center before moving toward the international airport.

Pockets of R.S.F. fighters continued to resist the military’s advance. As New York Times reporters walked through the deserted city center on Tuesday, explosions and bursts of gunfire rang out from sporadic fighting a few streets away.

But on Wednesday morning, the army declared that it had seized control of the airport, which is littered with the ruins of passengers jets abandoned in April 2023, at the start of the war. On Wednesday afternoon, soldiers posed on the runway for television cameras before an abandoned plane.

The last concentration of R.S.F. fighters in the capital appeared to be in the southern and western part of Omdurman, on the west bank of the Nile. The army controls the northern half of Omdurman, and army controlled areas have received sporadic shellfire from R.S.F. positions in recent years.