The BBC has heard evidence of atrocities caused by retreating fighters in a riot to control the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
The city has been held by the Paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) since the start of the country's brutal civil war about two years ago – but the Army has taken back most of it and believes it's grabbing the rest.
Regaining the capital would be a huge victory for the army and a turning point in the war, although it would not end the conflict itself.
In recent weeks, troops have primarily surrounded Khartoum, emerged from the south after influx from central Sudan and cleared urban areas in the north and east, squeezing the remaining RSF combatants into the center.
The vast area of the reclaimed territory was completely destroyed.
Traveling with the army, we drove through blocks, destroyed and looted buildings – some of them turned black by fires and many were marked by bullet holes.
Recent battles have destroyed a group of apartments in the Haj Yusuf district of Khartoum [Ken Mungai / BBC]
The sidewalks before them were scattered with damaged vehicles, abandoned furniture, sweeping goods and other debris dirt.
But even in places that seem to be out of reach, horror is new.
In Haj Yusuf, the Khartoum region east of the Nile, residents described chaos and violence as fleeing RSF combatants to open civilians.
“It was a shock, they came suddenly,” Intisar Adam Suleiman said.
Her two sons are Muzamil, 18, and Mudather, 21, sitting at home with a friend. Ms Suleiman said RSF soldiers ordered them to enter inside and then shot backward as they entered the gate.
He told me that Muzhamir escaped a bullet injury in his leg, but “our friend died immediately.”
“Then the man wanted to enter the house and my mother tried to close the door, push and push. They found a phone call on the ground, grabbed it, and left. I went to my friend's father so that he could come for first aid, but we couldn't rescue him.”
Muzami is the 18-year-old son of Intisar Adam Suleiman [Ken Mungai / BBC]
The next morning, Mudather died because the hospital's blood bank was destroyed by a prolonged power outage and he was unable to get the blood transfusion he needed.
Ms Suleiman said she met RSF soldiers and was engaged to them before trying to downgrade the violence.
One of them told her: “We come to die, we are the dead.”
She said she told them: “If you come to die, this is not the place to die.”
However, Ms. Suleiman saw too much death in this war.
She said many people died: “I’m used to these traumas.”
A few blocks away, Asma Mubarak Abdel Karim told me that she and a group of women were caught in battle with the Sudanese army.
She said they faced retreating RSF soldiers who accused them of staying with the military because they had entered the market on Army-controlled territory.
“They shot on the ground around us, which scared us,” she said. Then, they explained how they pulled a woman into an empty house and raped her.
She said the RSF fighter jets held the woman with a gun and told her: “Come with us.”
Ms. Karim said he beat her with a weapon.
“Then we heard the shooting and the man ordered her: 'Pick it! Do it!' Then the battle around us intensified, and we could never hear it again – the bullets fell in the area, so we were hiding in the house.”
Sudanese military continues to make huge gains in Khartoum – since the beginning of the conflict [Ken Mungai / BBC]
When asked what was the best thing for her now, she wiped her tears.
She whispered: “Safety is safe. They are so tremendous torture.”
A RSF spokesman denied the reports, saying the group had controlled the area for two years in “no major crimes” and reported “mass killing” in areas taken by the military.
Army and Allied militias were accused of extensive atrocities following the re-occupation of territory, especially in the central Gezra state.
The United Nations and we say both sides have committed war crimes but have picked out the RSF to criticize mass rape and allegations of genocide.
It's not just the RSF infantry that's moving.
Senior officials gave up their home in Karfuri, a wealthy suburb nearby.
RSF elites embed themselves in Khartoum’s institutions, launching each other in April 2023 to fight for control.
Karfuri is now very empty and completely plundered.
Even the RSF's deputy commander Abdel Rahim Hamdan Dagalo and the brothers of the group's leaders were not spared.
The large empty swimming pool in the yard is scattered with garbage.
The sofa in the spacious room was overturned, the windows were broken, the gold jewelry box was exposed, and the door to the high safety deposit box at the waist had been pulled open.
The Army said it believes that most of the senior RSF leadership is now outside the city, and those still fighting for the heart of Khartoum are junior commanders and low-level soldiers.
Most senior RSF leaders left the upscale suburb Karfuri, where their houses were robbed, including the team's second commander [Ken Mungai / BBC]
We are told that the military is using drones to drop flyers and urge the remaining fighters to leave instead of fighting in the streets.
The samples we showed were written in Arabic and French, apparently targeting foreign fighters in neighboring Chad.
One person said: “Let down your weapons, change them into civilian clothes, leave the area to save lives.”
In northern Khartoum, near the Nile, the RSF was driven out a few months ago, but the sound of shells was often pierced by shelling when the army opened fire on the river position opposite the group.
Many here say they finally feel safe enough to fall asleep at night but are still causing widespread damage.
Zeinab Osman al-Haj showed me the wreckage of her house and told me that the RSF fighter would appear at night and that if she didn't open the door, it would break it.
“They filled their backpacks and even my food supply, my sugar, my flour, my oil, soap, they took it away,” she said.
“This is not a war,” she said, pointing to the burnt bed frame in the burned bedroom where a pile of ashes once stood.
“That's chaos: theft, theft and robbery, that's it.”
“I came down here and almost cried. Two years, I haven't seen this place yet. We suffered a lot of pain, extreme suffering.”
We met several streets and Hussein Abbas.
He was nearly 70 years old and walked with a cane and dragged a abused suitcase to the empty streets towards the skyline of the burned buildings.
He tells us that he has been displaced since leaving the capital seven days after the war.
“The moment I came down here, I almost cried.” As tears began to roll. “It's been two years, and I haven't seen this place in two years. We've suffered a lot, a lot of pain.”
Survivors like Mr. Abbas are slowly returning to try to save their home.
Now the army has the upper hand in this terrible war, but the Sudanese people still suffer a lot.
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