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WAD MADANI: Civilians and soldiers celebrated in Wad Madani, the capital of Sudan’s El Gezira state, after it was recaptured by the Sudanese army from the paramilitary Rapid Support Services, marking a possible turning point in a devastating near two-year civil war.
“We are so happy, we can’t express ourselves,” said one woman on Sunday, as soldiers shot into the air and people cheered on the streets. “A whole year we have been squeezed, we haven’t been able to breathe.”
The war began in the capital Khartoum in April 2023 over the integration of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Services (RSF). It has created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, pushing more than 12 million people out of their homes, and plunging half of the population into hunger.
The RSF’s occupation of El Gezira turned the fertile state into one at risk of famine. Its tight-knit villages were emptied out by violent raids as fields lay fallow or were set on fire, residents and eyewitnesses have said.
The RSF denies the accusations and says it is fighting rogue actors who are committing abuses.
The army’s ability to regain full control of the state would be pivotal in its attempts to choke the RSF’s supply lines to Khartoum and the army-controlled eastern half of the country. The RSF still controls most of the capital.

MORALE BOOST
“The SAF’s capture of Wad Madani boosts its own morale and puts large RSF contingents at risk of encirclement in the area,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.
“It also frees the SAF to intensify pressure on Khartoum before potentially shifting its focus westward,” he said, while warning that the RSF could launch a counteroffensive on Al-Fashir, the army’s last remaining holdout in the western Darfur region.
“This is a big victory that we thank God for, but we are not stopping, we are going swiftly, we are in a hurry, and God-willing soon every inch of Sudan will be cleansed,” General Shams el-Din Kabbashi, deputy leader of the armed forces, told troops and civilians in Madani.
The bodies of RSF soldiers could be seen on the road and bridge leading into the city, but eyewitnesses reported few clashes inside Madani.
The relatively swift takeover comes after weeks of advances by the army in surrounding villages, newly equipped in recent months with fresh armaments and new recruits to allied forces.

HELPED BY DEFECTORS

The Joint Forces, a collection of former rebel groups, as well as Sudan Shield, led by RSF defector Abuagla Keikal, participated in the assault.
The RSF chose to withdraw after being overwhelmed in the lead-up to the takeover, sources in the paramilitary said. They added that its soldiers were exhausted by airstrikes and by dwindling stocks of ammunition and supplies.
They withdrew northwards toward other towns in the state and Khartoum, eyewitnesses said, chased by army airstrikes.
Fiercer fighting could be expected as the RSF fights to maintain control of Khartoum, where the army has made gains, the RSF sources said.
Many of the paramilitary’s fighters come from militias and tribal groups outside of Gezira and had little will to fight for the country’s center, the RSF sources added.
Residents said there had been extensive looting.
“If we have just 1000 pounds ($0.40) they tell us to hand it over. They exhausted and humiliated us,” said lawyer Ahmed Abdelqadir, who along with other women and children cheered for the SAF soldiers as they drove through the town.
The paramilitary soldiers who roamed through the town raided homes and killed the residents if they didn’t find anything, she said.
“They left us with nothing.” 

Six member states of the European Union have called for the bloc to temporarily suspend sanctions on Syria in areas such as transport, energy and banking, according to a paper seen by Reuters.
EU foreign ministers are set to discuss relaxing Syria sanctions during a meeting in Brussels on Jan. 27.
European leaders began reassessing their policy toward Damascus after the ousting of president Bashar Assad by insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and most other countries, as well as the United Nations.
The document, signed by Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Finland and Denmark, said the EU “should immediately begin adjusting our sanctions regime.”
Nevertheless, the paper also warned that if EU expectations of respect for human rights and minorities are not met, further sanctions may not be lifted and a snapback mechanism could be applied to sanctions already removed.
The US last week issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months in an effort to ease the flow of humanitarian assistance.
The six EU members said the bloc should lift sanctions to facilitate civilian flights, reevaluate sanctions on high-value goods, remove an export ban on oil and gas technology, and reopen financial channels between the EU and Syria.
They also said sanctions against members of the Assad administration and its supporters should remain in place.
Lifting sanctions on HTS would have to be discussed at the United Nations level and coordinated with close partners, the paper said, adding that “it will depend on our joint assessment of the listed entity HTS and its leader (Ahmed) Al-Shara’a and of the evolution on the ground in Syria”.
Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, met Syria’s new foreign minister, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, on Sunday in Riyadh, where top Middle Eastern and Western diplomats gathered to discuss the situation in the country.
“Now is the time for Syria’s new leadership to deliver on the hope they have created – through a peaceful & inclusive transition that protects all minorities,” she said.
“Next, we will discuss with EU Foreign Ministers how to ease sanctions,” she added.