Sudan's army recapture presidential palace in Khartoum
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Sudanese army has recaptured the presidential palace in Khartoum from the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, military leaders have said.
The army appears poised to regain control of the capital two years after it was kicked out by its paramilitary rivals, known as the RSF.
Also in the programme: Europe's busiest airport, London Heathrow, has been shut down by an electricity cut; we'll hear about the Ukrainian organisation trying to help people flee life under Russian occupation; and why yellow warblers are succumbing to road rage.
(Photo shows Sudanese army members celebrate inside the presidential palac in Khartoum, Sudan, March 21, 2025. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:11.1 | We're starting the programme with a conflict that barely gets the attention it deserves. It's a multi-dimensional disaster of violence and displacement, hunger and suffering, which has left a vast |
| 0:22.7 | country ablaze. I'm talking about Sudan, and we're leading with the story today here on NewsHour |
| 0:28.8 | because we may, just may, be at a pivotal moment in this nearly two-year-old civil war. |
| 0:36.0 | That moment has been reached with the Sudanese army, |
| 0:38.6 | apparently retaking the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum from the paramilitary |
| 0:43.9 | rapid support forces. |
| 0:50.0 | The sound from a video posted on social media which the BBC has verified of Sudanese army soldiers |
| 0:56.6 | waving guns in the air and praising God, celebrating their capture of the palace. |
| 1:01.9 | The RSF, for its part, says that the battle isn't over, but a spokesman for the Sudanese army, |
| 1:07.0 | Nabil Abdallah, insisted that more key buildings in the capital were now under army control. |
| 1:16.2 | In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful. In a timeless heroic battle, our forces |
| 1:21.9 | crowned their successes today in Khartoum, where they were able to crush the remnants of the |
| 1:27.2 | terrorist militia of Dagalou. In the areas of central Khartoum, where they were able to crush the remnants of the terrorist militia of Daghalo. |
| 1:29.2 | In the areas of central Khartoum, the Arab market and the buildings of the Republican Palace, |
| 1:34.4 | a symbol of the sovereignty, pride and dignity of the Sudanese people, |
| 1:38.3 | and in the buildings of the ministries. |
| 1:41.9 | You heard the name Dagalow there, one of the names by which the leader of the paramilitary rapid support forces is known. |
| 1:48.4 | They've been fighting the Sudanese National Army under the command of General Abdul Fathar al-Burhan. |
| 1:54.6 | Our Africa correspondent, Barbara Plet-Ushah, is in Port Sudan, a bit further north from, well, a fairway further north, from the capital |
| 2:03.4 | Khartoum. But, Barbara, you've been tracking events very closely. What is your understanding of |
| 2:08.9 | the advance of the army? Well, this is the culmination, really, of an offensive that the |
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