Ten days ago, in a major turning point in almost two years of war, the Sudanese army reclaimed the capital city from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia which took it over in 2023. What little we know so far paints a picture of a city ravaged by unimaginable horror.

The war has sent Sudan hurtling into the largest humanitarian disaster in the world, triggering genocide in the west of the country, and starvation there and in other areas. Previously allies in power, the RSF – formalised and expanded from the remnants of the Janjaweed militia – and the Sudanese military went to war when their partnership fell apart. The victims have been the Sudanese people, whose lives were trampled beneath. Khartoum’s centrality in the war, both in its prosperity and in terms of what it represents for the RSF as the seat of power, has meant the city has been subjected to a particularly intense and vengeful campaign: the RSF seized it and then proceeded not to govern the city, but strip it and terrorise its inhabitants.

Those hesitantly leaving their homes to greet the Sudanese armed forces’ (SAF) soldiers are hollowed out with hunger, thirst, disease and fear. They recount a siege of theft and murder, as a trigger-happy RSF militia shot those who resisted their demands. Afraid to carry their dead to graveyards, people buried those killed in shallow graves in their own streets and back yards. Elsewhere, corpses have been left to decompose where they fell. Widespread sexual violence against the civilian population has been reported from the early days of the war. It........

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