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Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris announced on Sunday the government’s return to Khartoum, after nearly three years of operating from its wartime capital of Port Sudan.
In the early days of the regular military’s war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, the army-aligned government fled the capital, which was quickly overrun by rival troops. It has pursued a gradual return to Khartoum since the army recaptured the city last March.
“Today, we return, and the Government of Hope returns to the national capital,” Idris told reporters in Khartoum.
For close to two years, the Sudanese capital, comprising the three cities of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North (Bahri), was an active battlefield. Entire neighbourhoods were besieged, rival fighters shot artillery across the Nile River, and millions of people were displaced from the city.
Between March and October, 1.2 million people returned to Khartoum, according to the United Nations. Many found a city with barely functioning services, their homes destroyed, and neighbourhoods pockmarked by makeshift cemeteries, authorities are now exhuming.
The war is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people in the capital alone, but the complete toll is unknown, as many families are forced to bury their dead in makeshift graves.
Idris said the government was committed to improving electricity, water, healthcare and education services.
The city has witnessed relative calm, though the RSF has carried out drone strikes, particularly on infrastructure.
Battles rage elsewhere across the vast country. South of Khartoum, the RSF has pushed through the Kordofan region, after dislodging the army from its last stronghold in Darfur last year.
The conflict has left 11 million people displaced internally and across borders, and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.
