SUDAN’S military broke the near two-year paramilitary siege of the key southern capital of El-Obeid on Sunday. 

Breaking the siege restored access to a strategic area in the region, strengthening crucial supply routes in the war against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), officials said.

The military also routed the RSF from its last stronghold in the White Nile province in another setback, military spokesman Brigadier General 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 a civil war.

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.

Brig Gen Abdullah said military troops managed to reopen the road to El-Obeid, the provincial capital of North Kordofan province. 

The city hosts a sprawling airbase and the military’s 5th Infantry Division, and is located on a railway linking Khartoum to Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur province.

Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim hailed the military’s advances as a “massive step” towards lifting 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 starting in September, when the military launched an offensive aimed at recapturing Khartoum and its two sister cities of Omdurman and Khartoum North, or Bahri.