Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shells presidential palace in Khartoum

Paramilitaries shell Khartoum palace, escalating conflict with army; thousands dead, millions displaced in Sudan's civil war.

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shelled the presidential palace in Khartoum on Thursday (May 1, 2025) in their second bombardment of the capital in less than a week, an army source said.

The paramilitaries fired long-range artillery at the palace from the Al-Salha district across the White Nile, their closest position since the army recaptured Khartoum in March, the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties from the shelling, which followed a similar bombardment of the army's General Command headquarters in Khartoum on Saturday.

The paramilitaries have been at war with the regular army since April 2023. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.

Since its loss of Khartoum in April, the RSF has focused on consolidating its control of the vast western region of Darfur, where the besieged city of El-Fasher is the last major population centre still in the army's hands.

The RSF said on Thursday it had captured the desert town of El-Nuhud in West Kordofan state, a key staging post on the road to Darfur.

Witnesses told AFP that the paramilitaries entered the town in early morning from the north and west.