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Sudan army says its forces enter Wad Madani in push to retake city from RSF

Published

11 months ago

January 11, 2025

Sudan army says its forces enter Wad Madani in push to retake city from RSF

The military says it is working to ‘clean up the remaining rebel pockets’ inside the capital of Gezira state.

The Sudanese military and allied armed groups have entered Wad Madani and were pushing out the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary from the strategic city in Gezira state, according to the army.

In a statement on Saturday, the armed forces “congratulated” the Sudanese people on “our forces entering the city of Wad Madani this morning” after more than a year of RSF control.

“They are now working to clean up the remaining rebel pockets inside the city,” the statement said.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF.

The office of army-allied government spokesperson and Information and Culture Minister Khalid al-Aiser said the army had “liberated” the city.

The army posted a video appearing to show soldiers inside the city that has been held by the RSF since December 2023.

Sudan’s army and the RSF have been at war since April 2023, causing what the UN calls the world’s worst displacement crisis and declarations of famine in parts of the northeast African country.

Wad Madani is strategic because it is a crossroads of key supply highways linking several states, and is the nearest major town to the capital Khartoum.

Army ‘in most parts of Wad Madani’

Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said the army forces had been advancing towards the city over recent days.

“They have been taking over villages in the south and southeast of [Gezira] state until this morning, when they took over Hantoub Bridge – a decisive bridge that leads into the city,” she said.

“The army is now in most parts of Wad Madani,” she added.

“The army and allied fighters have spread out around us across the city’s streets,” one witness told the AFP news agency from his home in central Wad Madani, requesting anonymity for his safety.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of committing war crimes including targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.

Sudanese citizens in Port Sudan celebrate following an announcement by the army that it entered the city of Wad Madani [Ibrahim Mohammed Ishak/Reuters]

The paramilitary forces have been accused of summary killings, rampant looting, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.

The United States on Tuesday said the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti.

The local resistance committee, one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer groups across the country coordinating frontline aid, hailed the Wad Madani advance as an end to “the tyranny” of the RSF.

Witnesses in army-controlled cities across Sudan reported dozens of people taking to the streets to celebrate the news.

Twelve million displaced

The recapture of Gezira state as a whole could mark a turning point in the war that began over disputes on the integration of the two forces, which has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million people, more than three million of whom have fled across borders.

In the early months of the war, more than half a million people had sought shelter in Gezira, before a lightning RSF offensive displaced upwards of 300,000 in December 2023, according to the UN.

Most have been repeatedly displaced since, as the feared paramilitaries moved further and further south.

The RSF still holds the rest of the central agricultural state of Gezira, as well as nearly all of Sudan’s western Darfur region and swaths of the country’s south.

The army controls the north and east, as well as parts of the capital Khartoum.

Related Topics:Featured middle east news Sudan

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World

Video: Why Is the U.S. Threatening Venezuela?

Published

6 hours ago

November 27, 2025

Press Room

Video: Why Is the U.S. Threatening Venezuela?

Venezuela doesn’t play a large role in the drug trade to the United States, so what is motivating the massive military buildup? Julian E. Barnes, who reports on intelligence and international security, discusses the issues with our senior writer Katrin Bennhold.

World

Putin calls Trump’s peace plan a ‘starting point’ as he warns Ukraine to pull back or face ‘force’

Published

7 hours ago

November 27, 2025

Press Room

Putin calls Trump’s peace plan a ‘starting point’ as he warns Ukraine to pull back or face ‘force’

Putin arrives for meeting in Kyrgyzstan

Putin meets with the heads of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for a summit in Kyrgyzstan. (Russian pool via AP.)

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Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed interest in using President Trump’s peace plan as a negotiating departure point to end the nearly four-year war between Ukraine and Russia.

“We need to sit down and discuss this seriously,” Putin told reporters at the end of a three-day visit to Kyrgyzstan, according to an Associated Press report. He added, “Every word matters.”

Putin described U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan as “a set of issues put forward for discussion” rather than a draft agreement.

RUSSIA WARNS IT MAY REJECT US-UKRAINE PEACE PLAN IF IT FAILS TO UPHOLD ALASKA SUMMIT ‘UNDERSTANDINGS’

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking to Russian journalists after the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

“If Ukrainian troops withdraw from the territories they occupy, hostilities will cease. If they don’t withdraw, we will achieve this by force,” the Russian strongman said.

Andy Barr, R-Ky., a House Foreign Affairs Committee member, told Fox News Digital the situation reinforces the need for strong American leadership. “Russia invaded Ukraine because Joe Biden was the weakest president in American history.”

Barr, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Kentucky said, “President Trump’s peace-through-strength leadership kept Putin fully contained. This war never would have happened under his watch. Trump is the peace president… the only leader who can end this war and bring stability back to Europe.”

However, Putin critics believe he is seeking to trick the U.S. and the European Union.

The former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who predicted Putin’s jingoism and invasion of Ukraine, told the Polish international news network TVP that “Peace under Putin is unachievable for one simple reason: Putin is war — and Russia is gearing up for even more.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting in Moscow, Russia Aug. 6, 2025. (Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters)

Kasparov has also criticized NATO, Trump and the EU for failing to defend Ukraine and evict Russia from Ukraine’s entire territory.

“We owe them everything,” Kasparov recently said about Ukraine at the Halifax International Security Forum.

MOMENTUM BUILDS IN UKRAINE PEACE PUSH, BUT EXPERTS FEAR PUTIN WON’T BUDGE

Kremlin officials have had little to say so far about the peace plan put forward last week by Trump. Putin has been recalcitrant about accepting previous Trump plans to end the war.

Putin has demanded that Ukraine completely withdraw from the entirety of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions before Russia considers any sort of “peace negotiations” — notably including areas of each of those oblasts that Russia does not occupy. He also wants to keep Ukraine from joining NATO and hosting any Western troops, allowing Moscow to gradually pull the country back into its orbit.

Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, talk to the press as their consultations continue at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

The Institute for the Study of War on Wednesday cast doubt on Russian claims that its invasion is unstoppable as it is still struggling to capture cities in the eastern Donetsk region.

“Data on Russian forces’ rate of advance indicates that a Russian military victory in Ukraine is not inevitable, and a rapid Russian seizure of the rest of Donetsk Oblast is not imminent,” the Washington-based think tank said. “Recent Russian advances elsewhere on the front line have largely been opportunistic and exploited seasonal weather conditions.

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U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week, the Kremlin says, while U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who in recent weeks has played a high-profile role in the peace efforts, may be heading to Kyiv.

The initial U.S. peace proposal was criticized for being skewed toward Russian demands, but an amended version emerged from talks in Geneva on Sunday between American and Ukrainian officials. Sidelined European leaders, fearing for their own security amid Russian aggression, are angling for deeper involvement in the process.

The Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal, and email him at benjamin.weinthal@fox.com

World

EU Migration Commissioner: ‘We need the trust of the people back’

Published

9 hours ago

November 27, 2025

Press Room

EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner sees the new Pact and Asylum and Migration on track to tackle an issue that has been feeding populism for many years. He also defends negotiating with the Taliban and initiatives to negotiate ‘return hubs’ with non-EU countries.