CAIRO – Sudan’s military on Sunday broke a more than yearlong siege on the crucial city of Obeid, restoring access to a strategic area in the south-central region and strengthening crucial supply routes in its nearly two years of war against a notorious paramilitary group, officials said.

The military also kicked the Rapid Support Forces from its last stronghold in the White Nile province in another setback to the notorious group, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah said in a statement.

Sudan was plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare across the country.

The fighting, which wrecked the capital, Khartoum, and other urban areas has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.

Abdullah, the spokesman, said military troops in the al-Sayyad axis managed to reopen the road to the city of Obeid and break the RSF siege on the city which serves as the provincial capital of North Kordofan province. The city hosts a sprawling airbase and the military’s 5th Infantry Division known as Haganah.

A commercial and transportation hub, Obeid is located on a railway linking Khartoum to Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur province. It was besieged by the RSF since the onset of the ongoing conflict in April 2023.

Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim hailed the military’s advances in Obeid as a “massive step” to lift the RSF siege on el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, as well as delivering humanitarian aid to the Kordofan area.

Sunday’s RSF defeats were the latest in a series of setbacks for the notorious group that started in September when the military launched an offensive aiming at recapturing the Great Khartoum area — Khartoum and its two sister cities of Omdurman and Khartoum North, or Bahri.

The military has since captured strategic areas including its own main headquarters and is now close to recapturing the Republican Palace which RSF fighters stormed in the first hours of the war in an attempt to kill military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan.

The RSF has also suffered multiple battlefield setbacks elsewhere in the country. It lost control of the city of Wad Medani, the capital of Gezira province, and other areas in the province. The military also regained control of the country’s largest oil refinery.

The developments on the ground have given the military the upper hand in the war, which is approaching its 2-year mark with no peaceful settlement on the horizon. International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a U.S. assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, have not halted the conflict.

The RSF and its allies, meanwhile, signed a charter that paved the way for the establishment of a parallel government to challenge the military-backed administration. The move has raised concerns about a potential split of the country.

Cholera spreading to another city

Cholera has spread to Rabak, the provincial capital of White Nile province, according to health authorities in the province. The disease first hit Kosti, another White Nile city, before reaching Rabak, the health ministry said.

A total of 68 people died from cholera in the two cities between Thursday and Sunday, according to the health ministry. More than 1,860 others were diagnosed with the disease, it said.

An anti-cholera vaccination campaign in Kosti and Rabak reached 67% of its targeted people in the last two days, according to the ministry.

The outbreak was blamed mainly on contaminated drinking water after Kosti’s water supply facility was knocked out during an attack by the RSF, the health ministry said. The facility was later fixed as part of the government’s efforts to fight the disease.

Cholera is a highly contagious disease that causes diarrhea leading to severe dehydration and can be fatal if not immediately treated, according to the World Health Organization. It’s transmitted through the ingestion of contaminated food or water.

Cholera outbreaks are not uncommon in Sudan. The disease killed more than 600 and sickened over 21,000 others in Sudan between July and October last year, mostly in the country’s eastern areas where millions of people displaced by the conflict were located.