“There’s been heavy air strikes and RPG fire since 6:30 am,” a resident of the Bahri neighbourhood of Shambat told Reuters. The army has been pounding targets around the capital since Tuesday as it tries to root out RSF forces. While army and RSF officers are engaged in talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which are aimed at securing a ceasefire, fighting in Khartoum intensified on Wednesday, residents said. They just laughed.” Pounding targets around Khartoum “I said to them : you’re keeping me here to protect yourself. He requested anonymity to speak without fear of retribution. They know there are prisoners there, including high-ranked officers,” said the man who was released last week. The Sudanese military has used air strikes and heavy artillery to try to dislodge the RSF fighters, whom army Chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has accused of detaining civilians to use as human shields.Ī Sudanese businessman, who said he was detained by the RSF at their central base in Khartoum, told the Telegraph he believed he had been held alongside hundreds of other civilians to prevent the facility from being attacked. Since fighting erupted on April 15, the RSF have seized key government buildings, as well as digging defensive positions in civilian neighbourhoods across Khartoum, where some estimates suggest they control up to 80 per cent of the city, including the Republican Palace. Governor general Charles George Gordon was killed on the site of the old palace in 1885 by supporters of the Mahdi. The nearby British colonial-era Republican Palace, built in 1830, appeared undamaged except for three holes in the wall facing the Nile. The new Republican Palace, built in 2015, showed damage to the roof in the southwest corner and smoke damage to the top floor.

The army denied the claim, while drone images taken by Sudanese photographer Abd Almohimen Sayed on Wednesday showed the palace complex was damaged but intact. On Tuesday evening, the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) claimed the Sudanese army had “launched air raids on the Republican Palace, resulting in its complete destruction”. Sudan’s Republican Palace has been damaged in intense urban fighting in Khartoum, drone footage revealed on Wednesday, as rival militaries intensified their battle for the capital, despite ongoing peace talks in Saudi Arabia.

Rebel by S. Massery