‘The ground was shaking, no one expected it’ – Sudan’s army launches dawn raid to recapture Khartoum
The Sudanese army's offensive across the Nile in the capital, Khartoum, was heralded by a sudden thunder of shelling and air strikes that reverberated through the darkness.
Troops charged across two bridges from the sister city of Omdurman, reportedly wearing green martyrdom headbands in expectation of death as the assault was so perilous.
The cacophony marked the army's largest Khartoum offensive so far against their UAE-backed paramilitary adversaries , in a city divided by front lines and where the remaining residents are unable to leave their homes. Soldiers led by the de facto president lost much of the city to the Rapid Support Force (RSF) at the start of the country's catastrophic 18-month-long civil war , and had been on the defensive there ever since.
"The noise was so intense it felt as if the ground were shaking," said one resident called Tariq Ali who spoke to The Telegraph by telephone.
"We haven't slept and have been hearing loud missile sounds and shelling and bombs that began around 2am on Thursday morning."
The attack over the Medical Corps and Fatehab bridges took place in the historic heart of the city at the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile.
It was here at the same point that 139 years ago a Mahdist army overran and killed Gen Charles Gordon after a 10-month siege.
RSF defenders scrambled to deploy reinforcements and repel the army's dawn assault.
"Everybody was terrified and there was no way to move out of your house, unless you wanted to participate," said another resident, called Mohammed Ahmed. "We saw RSF forces moving and running.
"No one had expected this attack. The Sudanese army had been on the defensive, but suddenly the RSF was now defending and turning houses into military strong points, forcibly evicting citizens and looting."
The city's Petrodar Tower and Hilton were both in flames as the RSF tried to stop the army pushing through the Mogran neighbourhood towards the Arab market area. After the first few days of fighting, the army's bridgehead into Khartoum seemed to stretch no more than a mile, according to Sudan War Monitor, a collective of journalists and researchers tracking the war.
Then on Saturday, the Sudanese army captured another Nile crossing, the Halfaya bridge a few miles north, effectively ending the siege of a military base, before turning to push south.
Hours after the assault began, the two warring generals who have tipped the country into disaster sparred at the United Nations general assembly as their men fought. Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, said the RSF was seeking "to take over power by force" and later blamed the United Arab Emirates for backing the RSF.
Abu Dhabi denies supporting the RSF.
Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who leads the RSF, responded that there was no legitimate government and "there is a complete constitutional collapse". The escalation in Khartoum and the failure of all diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting will worsen what is already one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters, aid agencies fear.
An estimated 150,000 are dead in the war so far and more than 10 million have fled their homes. Millions are on the brink of famine as the warring parties block aid convoys into their opponents' territory.
Both sides are accused of atrocities, sexual violence is rife and RSF massacres in the Darfur region have echoed the country's genocide 20 years ago.
The economy and healthcare have largely collapsed and food prices have jumped three or four-fold.
"The situation of the people in Khartoum is unbelievable," said Mr Ahmed.
"My family and I don't have any income to rely on, we depend on our extended family abroad to send us money and food donations from charity groups."
He said those who remain have nowhere to go and also do not want to lose their property to the RSF.
Mass displacement
Waseem Ahmad, chief executive of the Islamic Relief Worldwide aid agency, said the Khartoum offensive would "further escalate violence, that will trigger mass displacement".
While visiting aid operations in Port Sudan on the Red Sea earlier this week, he said he had seen a stream of refugees arriving from Khartoum.
He said: "They say it was a ghost town where no one would dare to go out. They said it was very hard for us to leave our beloved homes and move away.
"This war will leave a lot of scars on the society of Sudan and on the people's minds, what they will go through. I think the healing process will take decades."
'A forgotten crisis'
Béatrice Butsana-Sita, chief executive of the British Red Cross, who has recently returned from Chad where hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have taken refuge, said the scale of the disaster was "horrific".
She said she had seen large numbers cross the border, starving, exhausted and with no possessions, adding: "It's just a stream, they are coming, coming, with nothing.
"At one point I thought, you can't fall lower than that, because the only thing they have really is their memories and their minds.
"It's tragic, it's a forgotten crisis. The need is so big, it's overwhelming."
