Sudan army advances in northern El Gezira, approaches Khartoum
Army forces' advance on the Sharg El Nil and El Kamlin axes (Google maps, edited by RD)
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) yesterday announced that they seized control of El Kamlin in El Gezira. SAF Commander-in-Chief Abdelfattah El Burhan visited Khartoum North/Bahri and said that ‘the army is on its way to Khartoum’. In Omdurman, six people were killed in an attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a hospital.
SAF soldiers posted video clips on their social media accounts yesterday morning showing their victory over El Kamlin town and the Wad El Turabi area north of El Kamlin in El Gezira. The clips showed images of soldiers in front of El Kamlin Hospital and the town’s court complex.
During the past few days, the army attacked the paramilitary RSF in El Kamlin in which the new RSF commander of El Gezira, Abdallah Hussein, was killed.
The former RSF commander of El Gezira, Abu Agla Keikel, defected to the army along with his troops in October, which meant a significant blow to the paramilitary group’s grip on central Sudan. The SAF retook Wad Madani, the state’s capital last month.
El Burhan visits East Nile
Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, SAF commander-in-chief and head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, visited Wad Abu Saleh in Sharg El Nil (East Nile) yesterday morning, after the army regained large parts of the locality.
In his address to a crowd of soldiers and residents of the area, he said that the army is on its way to Khartoum, approaching the Soba and El Masid bridges between Khartoum North/Bahri and Khartoum.
He praised the residents for their resistance against the paramilitaries and added, “We will fight the RSF until they are eliminated”.
The SAF on Monday announced its control over El Asilat, Um Dawaban, and Wad Abu Saleh in East Nile. Its troops also lifted the RSF siege on the El Eilafon base camp.
Abu Agla Keikel, who is now commander of the Sudan Shield Forces militia fighting alongside the army, said in a video clip that their forces engaged with the El Eilafon base forces and then they will head to the Soba East Bridge, which connects East Nile locality to Khartoum. In mid-January, he vowed ‘to enter Khartoum within 48 hours’.
White Nile
In the northern part of White Nile state, east of El Hasaheisa in El Gezira, the army also continued its attacks on the RSF. Warplanes launched an airstrike near Naima town in El Geteina yesterday morning.
SAF soldiers advanced on Awaj, took control of a number of villages, and besieged Naima, sources said. The army repelled an RSF attack on the Wad El Zaki area, where the RSF is amassing its paramilitaries in the village of Abu Ajaj, south of El Geteina.
Six killed in hospital
Yesterday morning, remaining RSF units shelled several areas in the large El Sawra district in Omdurman and the El Kadaro neighbourhood in Khartoum Bahri.
In El Sawra, volunteer El Sadig Haidar and five others were killed yesterday morning, in RSF artillery shelling of the El Nau Hospital – which remained open during the war, despite numerous attacks.
About 38 others, including medical personnel, sustained varying shrapnel injuries, as missiles hit the hospital courtyard.
Military Intelligence detained volunteer Momin Wad Zeinab from the hospital for hours before releasing him.
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