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The Sudanese military recaptured a key city in Sudan\u2019s breadbasket region on Saturday, chasing out a paramilitary group that the United States accused last week of genocide.<\/p>\n
Sudan\u2019s information minister said the army had \u201cliberated\u201d the city, Wad Madani, while the military said that its troops were working to \u201cclear the remnants of the rebels\u201d from the area.<\/p>\n
If the army can hold on to the city, it would be its most significant victory since the war started nearly two years ago. Experts said it would most likely shift the focus of the war northward to Khartoum, the capital.<\/p>\n
Videos circulating online showed the army entering Wad Madani, which lies about 100 miles south of the capital. Local media reported that fighters with the paramilitary group, known as the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., were fleeing the city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The group\u2019s leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, admitted defeat but vowed to soon recapture the city. \u201cToday we lost a round; we did not lose the battle,\u201d he said in an audio address to his fighters and the Sudanese people.<\/p>\n
The victory brought joyous scenes in army-held parts of the country among Sudanese who hoped it might signal a turning point in a ruinous civil war that has led to massacres, ethnic cleansing and a spreading famine in one of Africa\u2019s largest countries.<\/p>\n
People massed on the battle-scarred streets of Khartoum, while church bells pealed in Port Sudan, the wartime de facto capital where many Sudanese have fled the fighting. Celebrations also erupted among exiled Sudanese in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The R.S.F. defeat came just over a year after the group seized Wad Madani in a victory that forced tens of thousands of people to flee and sent shock waves across Sudan<\/a>. The group\u2019s fighters went on to capture swaths of the country, far from their stronghold in Darfur in western Sudan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n