Sudan’s army has launched a major offensive in the capital, Khartoum, to regain ground held by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The army carried out air strikes on Thursday against RSF positions in the capital and north of Khartoum in its biggest such assault in months.

According to international media reports, the army attacked several military sites belonging to the RSF, the sources said. Heavy and light weapons were being used in the continuing battles, and the Sudanese Air Force was carrying out several flights over Khartoum, they added.

At least four people were killed and 14 wounded during artillery shelling on Thursday morning by the RSF, which targeted residential neighbourhoods in the Karari Governorate, north of Omdurman, according to Khartoum State Health Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim. The injured were transferred to Al-No Hospital, he said.

Though the army retook some ground in Omdurman early this year, it depends mostly on artillery and air strikes and has been unable to dislodge more effective RSF ground forces embedded in Khartoum.

Military sources said the assault was “in the works for months”, said Morgan, against the din of artillery and fighter jets overhead.

Sudan plunged into conflict in April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo broke out in a conflict that has so far displaced more than 10 million people, a fifth of Sudan’s population, both within the country and across borders.

The bloody civil war has caused a dire humanitarian crisis, however diplomatic efforts by the United States and other countries have faltered, with the army refusing to attend talks last month in Switzerland.

A UN-backed assessment has warned of the risk of widespread famine in Sudan on a scale not seen anywhere in the world in decades.