PeoplSudan’s military has recaptured Wad Madani, a strategically essential metropolis some 200km (124 miles) southeast of the capital Khartoum, in a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“The management of the Armed Forces congratulates our individuals on the entry of our forces into Wad Madani this morning. They’re now working to wash up the remaining insurgent pockets inside the town,” a military assertion learn.
This comes as the military advanced into the nation’s second-largest metropolis Omdurman final week after making regular beneficial properties in latest months. Wad Madani – the crossroads of key provide highways linking a number of states – had been below RSF management since December 2023.
RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nevertheless, insisted that the battle was not over. “In the present day we misplaced a spherical, we didn’t lose the battle,” stated Dagalo, who’s often known as Hemedti.
Since combating erupted in April 2023 between the military and the RSF over management of this North African nation, greater than 12 million individuals have been displaced, creating one of many world’s largest humanitarian crises.
So how important is the recapture of Wad Madani by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)? Can the military repeat its latest success because it goals to recapture territories nonetheless below RSF management?
How strategically positioned is Wad Madani? The place is it situated?
Town is the capital of Gezira state, situated within the centre of the nation and south of Khartoum.
In accordance with Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, whoever has management of the agricultural and buying and selling hub has simpler entry to different components of the nation.
“When the RSF took over Wad Madani in December 2023, that gave it the flexibility to have the ability to transfer to different components of the nation comparable to Sennar within the southeast, Blue Nile within the east, and the White Nile within the south as properly,” Morgan stated, reporting from the Sudanese capital.
Town can also be at “an important level” via which provides and different “logistical preparations” could be made into the capital, in keeping with Hamid Khalafallah, a Sudan coverage analyst and PhD candidate on the College of Manchester.
“Whoever controls Madani [has] much more flexibility when it comes to totally different stuff into Khartoum and out of Khartoum,” Khalafallah informed Al Jazeera.
Within the early days of the battle, earlier than the RSF took over, the town was a secure haven for displaced households.
Because the RSF’s takeover, it has been one of many websites of the paramilitary power’s bloodiest assaults on civilians, in addition to the burning of fields, looting of hospitals and markets, and flooding of irrigation ditches.
Has the Sudanese military captured all the Gezira state?
No, the RSF nonetheless retains management of a lot of the state, in addition to practically all of Sudan’s western Darfur area and enormous components of the nation’s south.
The military’s takeover of the strategic metropolis follows its bolstered marketing campaign to retake Gezira in latest months, after retaking Sennar state within the south.
The military was helped by the flip of occasions in October, when RSF’s prime commander within the state defected to the SAF. The commander’s troops took half in Saturday’s operations.
Final week, the military advanced within the second-largest metropolis Omdurman, capturing a number of areas from the RSF.
How important is the recapture of Wad Madani metropolis?
This represents a major flip of occasions within the battle and one other blow to the RSF, which has had an higher hand in opposition to the navy within the practically two-year battle.
The military’s seize will permit it to entry different components of the nation that the RSF will now be reduce off from, such because the Sennar, Blue Nile, and White Nile states.
“Now that [the RSF] misplaced that territory, that progress that it was in a position to make won’t be doable, and its forces in these areas can be trapped between forces of the Sudanese military,” stated Morgan.
“Wad Madani can also be the place the military’s first infantry division is situated, so that’s going to offer the military a morale increase,” she added.
When the RSF took over the town, there have been loads of complaints amongst officers and troopers that the management was not assembly the requirements of the Sudanese military and that there must be a alternative of the management, defined Morgan.
“Now that Wad Madani is again below the management of the Sudanese military, the military is prone to achieve – particularly its management – is prone to achieve extra assist, not simply from the troopers and officers but additionally from the Sudanese residents as properly,” she stated.
Moreover, the town’s recapture might help in Sudan’s starvation disaster, because the state is residence to Sudan’s most fertile lands and agriculture schemes – with most farming prohibited below the RSF, stated Khalafallah, the researcher.
“Now there can be room for individuals to develop, and to farm, and for meals to be produced, and so forth, to deal with Sudan’s unfolding famine and meals safety disaster,” he stated.
The flip of occasions can also provide long-awaited respite to the town’s residents, who “have been experiencing probably the most horrific human rights violations and atrocities dedicated by the [Rapid] Assist Forces”, Khalafallah stated.
Nonetheless, there was a sample of the military concentrating on pro-democracy activists within the cities they’ve already recaptured, Khalafallah warned, which might be a worrying growth if repeated in Wad Madani.
How a lot territory does the military management now?
Past Wad Madani, the Sudanese military additionally controls the north and east of the nation, in addition to components of the capital. The map under signifies areas of management between the SAF and the RSF, as of October 2024.
How did Sudanese individuals react to the seize?
In Wad Madani, Sudanese troops garbed in camo-print uniforms waved their rifles within the air as they rode via city on the again of their vehicles, flashing smiles after claiming to “liberate” the town, social media footage verified by Al Jazeera reveals.
The native resistance committee, considered one of a whole lot of pro-democracy volunteer teams throughout the nation coordinating front-line help, hailed the advance as an finish to “the tyranny” of the RSF.
In the meantime, eyewitnesses in army-controlled cities throughout Sudan reported dozens jubilantly celebrating within the streets.
Within the Crimson Sea-flanked metropolis of Port Sudan, boisterous crowds waved the Sudanese flag in celebration, verified movies additionally confirmed, following the information that the strategic city had been taken from the RSF’s management.
In Omdurman, chants of “one military, one individuals” broke out, an eyewitness informed the AFP information company.
