The military said it was working to “clear out any remaining rebels” within the capital of Gezira province.
Sudanese troops and allied armed groups entered Wad Medani to drive rival militia Rapid Support Forces (RSF) out of a key city in Gezira state, the military said.
In a statement on Saturday, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) “congratulated” the people on “the entry of our forces into the city of Wad Medani this morning” after more than a year of RSF control.
“They are currently working to clear out any remaining rebels in the city,” the statement said.
The office of South African Air Force Alliance Government Spokesman and Minister of Information and Culture Khalid al-Aisel said the military had “liberated” the city.
The military posted a video that appears to show soldiers in the city, which has been occupied by the RSF since December 2023.
In a speech shared on Telegram, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, popularly known as Hemedi, acknowledged defeat but insisted the fight was not over.
“We lost Wad Madani, but we will get it back. People just need to regroup, reorganize and reevaluate themselves,” he said.
Hemedi blamed the defeat on the military’s reliance on Iranian drones and fighter jets from Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
The SAF and RSF have been at war since April 2023, causing what the United Nations calls the world’s worst displacement crisis, with famine declared in parts of the northeast African country.
Wad Madani is a city of strategic importance as it is the intersection of major supply highways connecting several states and is the closest major city to the capital Khartoum.
Troops “in most areas of Wad Medani”
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said the SAF had been advancing towards the city in recent days.
“They continued to occupy villages in the south and southeast of (Gezira) province until this morning when they captured the Khantub Bridge, the decisive bridge leading into the city,” she said.
“There is currently a military presence in most areas of Wad Medani,” Morgan added.
“Military and allied fighters spread out across the city streets and around us,” one witness told AFP from his home in central Wad Medani, requesting anonymity for security reasons. .
Both the SAF and RSF have been accused of committing war crimes, targeting civilians and indiscriminate shelling of residential areas.
Militia groups have been accused of summary murders, rampant looting, systematic sexual violence, and sieges of entire towns.
The United States announced on Tuesday that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on its leader, Hemedi.
The Local Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer organizations across the country that coordinate front-line aid, hailed Wad Madani’s advance as an end to the RSF’s “tyranny.”
Witnesses in SAF-controlled cities across Sudan reported dozens of people taking to the streets to celebrate the news.
12 million people evacuated
The retaking of Gezira in its entirety could be a turning point in a war that began over a dispute over the unification of the two armies. Since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and approximately 12 million people displaced, creating one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
According to the United Nations, more than 500,000 people fled to Gezira in the early months of the war, but in December 2023 an RSF blitzkrieg displaced more than 300,000 people.
Most have since been repeatedly displaced as the feared militias move further south.
RSF still controls the remaining areas of the central agricultural state of Gezira, most of Sudan’s western Darfur region, and swaths of the country’s south.
The military controls the north and east of Khartoum, as well as parts of the city.
