General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Deputy Head of the Sudan Transitional Military Council, attends the signing ceremony of the agreement on peace and ceasefire in Juba, South Sudan October 21, 2019. File Photo / Reuters
Cairo: The head of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces admitted in a speech to fighters on Sunday that the group had withdrawn from the capital Khartoum which rival army forces have retaken.
The comment from RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo came three days after the group said there would be "no retreat and no surrender" and that its forces had "repositioned", despite the army's declaration on Thursday that "the last pockets" of the RSF had been eliminated from Khartoum after nearly two years of war.
"I confirm to you that we have indeed left Khartoum, but... we will return with even stronger determination," Daglo said in the speech posted on social media.
The war has created what the United Nations describes as the world's worst hunger and displacement crises. More than 12 million people have been uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and a UN-backed assessment declared famine in parts of the country.
"All those who think that there are negotiations or agreements in process with this diabolical movement are mistaken," Daglo said, in reference to the army.
"We have neither agreement nor discussion with them -- only the language of arms."
Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on Saturday also vowed not to back down, after a decisive blitz in which the army reclaimed the presidential palace, the war-damaged airport and other key sites in the city centre where buildings are burned and bullet-scarred.
"We will neither forgive, nor compromise, nor negotiate," Burhan said, adding that victory would only be complete when "the last rebel has been eradicated from the last corner of Sudan".
Despite the military's reclaiming of Khartoum, Africa's third-largest country remains essentially divided in two by the war. The army holds sway in the east and north while the RSF controls most of the vast Darfur region in the west, where it is rooted, and parts of the south.
Pope Francis, recovering from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia, on Sunday issued written prayers and urged new negotiations as soon as possible in Sudan.
