Sudan's army and allied militias have regained control of the country's central bank headquarters and other key sites in the capital from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, witnesses said on Saturday. It comes a day after the army retook the presidential palace.
Troops also drove the RSF out the National Museum, the Chinese-built Friendship Hall – the capital's largest conference complex, the National Intelligence Service's headquarters, the main campus of Sudan University and the Corinthia Hotel, a Khartoum landmark, witnesses said. The army also retook Tuti Island, a residential area on the Blue Nile.
The recent gains reverse some of the losses the army suffered in the days after the war began on April 15, 2023, when the RSF seized control of the presidential palace, most of the armed forces' headquarters, the city's international airport and key military bases and industrial complexes.
The RSF, whose forerunner is a notorious militia from Darfur called the Janjaweed, still controls the airport and about dozen residential districts in Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman which, together with Bahri, make up the greater capital region.
Videos widely shared online on Saturday purported to show soldiers and allied volunteers celebrating their victories at some of the recaptured sites. Most were in Al Muqran area near the city centre, at the point where the Blue and White Niles meet before they flow through northern Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean.
Speaking late on Friday, army chief Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan vowed to press on with the offensive until the RSF was defeated.
“We are all determined to finish off this mutiny and eliminate those criminals and murderers,” he told mourners at the funeral of an army officer killed on Friday when an RSF drone hit the presidential palace.
He ruled out any negotiations to end the war, saying: “We have had thousands of martyrs and we are not about to let their blood be wasted. We cannot let them die and then we sit with those people [the RSF] and say let bygones be bygones.”
Saudi Arabia and the US brokered several ceasefires shortly after the war broke out. But none of them halted the fighting, which is believed to have killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 12 million and left more than half of Sudan's 50 million people facing acute hunger. Eight million are believed to be on the brink of famine.
The war broke out after months of tension between Gen Al Burhan and RSF commander Gen Mohamed Dagalo, his one-time ally, over control of Sudan.
With the army and its allies now poised to regain full control of the capital, attention will slowly shift to Darfur in the west and Kordofan to the south-west – vast, arid regions controlled by the RSF. Both the RSF and the army have local allies there.
“The war may have entered the countdown stage now, but it's not over yet,” said Sudanese military analyst Salah Mansour, a retired brigadier general. “You still have to clean up Khartoum and then move on to Darfur and Kordofan. But any further advances by the army will make the end of the war just a matter of time.
“The RSF has been significantly weakened but can still prolong the war with street warfare tactics.”
PROFILE OF HALAN
Started: November 2017
Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport and logistics
Size: 150 employees
Investment: approximately $8 million
Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar
In-demand jobs and monthly salaries
- Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
- Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
- Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
- Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
- HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
- Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
- Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
- Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
- Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
- Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
- Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
- Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
DIVINE%20INTERVENTOIN
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company%20profile
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
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