Sudan's military chief vowed on Monday to carry on the fight against the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with the country gripped by conflict since April.
Making his first public comments since leaving the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Thursday, Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan said the Sudanese people stood by the army.
He denied speculation that his exit from the city was arranged with the RSF.
The RSF repeatedly claimed Gen Al Burhan was besieged in a section of the armed forces' headquarters in central Khartoum.
The paramilitary group is known to be in control of most of the sprawling complex, in addition to the city's airport and Republican Palace.
Last Thursday, Gen Al Burhan made an unexpected public appearance across the Nile in Omdurman, one of three cities that make up the greater Khartoum area.
He later went to an airbase in Wad Seidna, which had been the target of repeated RSF attacks.
Gen Al Burhan then flew to the city of Atbara, north of the capital, where he greeted troops at an artillery base. He few to Port Sudan aboard a military transport aircraft.
"We will fight, we will fight, we will fight until the last man standing,” he told troops at a naval base in Port Sudan, a Red Sea city under the army's control.
“This war will end with the victory of the armed forces and we will later have things to say."
He described the RSF as mercenaries, treasonous and the enemy, emphasising the divisions between the two sides as the international community calls for peace.
Sudan's war is essentially a fight for political and military control between Gen Al Burhan and his one-time deputy and ally Gen Mohamed Dagalo, who leads the RSF.
Neither side has been able to gain an advantage after four months of conflict.
The fighting has created a major humanitarian crisis and forced more than four million Sudanese to flee their homes.
Those trapped in Khartoum, the main theatre of operations, are contending with power and water shortages, a lack of health care and rocketing food and fuel prices.
The war has spread to the Darfur region, where the RSF and allied Arab militias have carried out fierce attacks against ethnic African communities.
Such violence has raised the spectre of the civil war in the region in the 2000s, when the RSF's forerunner, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide.
The International Criminal Court has said it is investigating possible war crimes in the current fighting by the RSF, which is also accused of looting and gender-based crimes such as sexual assault.
Gen Al Burhan's comments on Monday appeared to reject a statement from Gen Dagalo on Sunday night, which purported to commit to a political process to find peace.
Gen Dagalo said ideas including creating a federal and multicultural Sudan, holding democratic elections and establishing a single army that encompasses all armed groups, were possible.
His statement suggested he was willing to negotiate with the army over the shape of the future Sudanese state, going beyond the technicalities of a permanent ceasefire that have hindered mediation efforts led by Saudi Arabia and the US.
“Efforts to end the protracted crisis must be directed towards achieving a lasting ceasefire, coupled with comprehensive political solutions that address the root causes of Sudan's wars,” he said in the statement.
Gen Dagalo's comments echoed the RSF's insistence that it is a pro-democracy force fighting against army generals clinging to power and backed by allies, including those loyal to Sudan's former leader Omar Al Bashir.
But critics say the RSF is a lawless force that adheres to violent methods carried out by the Janjaweed in Darfur.
The army is also accused of using heavy artillery and air strikes against the RSF in Khartoum, causing hundreds of civilian casualties.
Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo jointly staged a military takeover in 2021 that derailed Sudan's democratic transition and led to political and security crises.
Security forces killed more than a 100 pro-democracy protesters and wounded thousands in the months that followed the takeover.
Gen Al Burhan has repeatedly promised to investigate the killings, as well as sexual assaults allegedly committed by security forces, and bring those responsible to justice.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
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Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
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Points about the fast fashion industry Celine Hajjar wants everyone to know
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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