Sudan’s Army Retakes the Presidential Palace in Khartoum

Sudanese military forces recaptured the presidential palace early Friday in the battle-scarred capital, Khartoum, signaling a potential turning point in Sudan’s devastating civil war, now approaching its third year.

Videos and photos showed soldiers standing triumphantly at the entrance of the devastated palace, which overlooks the Nile River, after days of heavy fighting with the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., the powerful paramilitary group that the army has been battling.

“We’re inside!” shouted an unidentified officer as cheering soldiers swarmed around him in one video posted Friday morning. “We’re in the Republican Palace!”

Sudan’s information minister and its military spokesman confirmed that the palace, an emblem of power in Sudan for two centuries, was back in government control. “Today the flag is raised, the palace is back, and the journey continues until victory is complete,” the minister, Khalid Ali al-Aiser, wrote on social media.

Retaking the palace was a major symbolic victory for Sudan’s army, which lost most of Khartoum to the R.S.F. in the early days of the war in April 2023, leaving its forces confined to a handful of embattled bases scattered across the vast city.

It was also a significant boost to the military’s drive to expel the paramilitaries from Khartoum entirely, six months into a giant counteroffensive that has swung the balance of the war toward the military in the eastern half of Sudan.