The government-aligned Sudanese armed forces (SAF) are renewing efforts for an operation to retake the Kordofan and Darfur regions from the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the civil war rages deep into its third year.

Sudan’s army has been assessing the RSF’s capabilities and resources in readiness for launching the military operation with a large number of military formations fully prepared to launch an attack, the SAF said.

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Any full-scale operation to liberate Kordofan in central Sudan and Darfur in the west would surpass the SAF’s recapture of Khartoum in March in terms of the planning that has taken place before the mission, the SAF said.

Al Jazeera’s Hiba Moran, reporting from Khartoum, said, “What we have seen is the Sudanese army reorganize and redeploy troops in various part of the Kordofan region. We have also seen the Sudanese army retake control of territories in the Kordofan region as well as launch air strikes and drone strikes on several RSF positions in Darfur and Kordofan.”

“And it looks like these are the preparations or the first steps of that offensive that the army has been speaking about in efforts to regain control of territories in Kordofan and Darfur,” she added.

The SAF on Friday said it inflicted heavy losses on the RSF during a series of air and ground operations carried out in Darfur and Kordofan.

In a statement, the military said its forces conducted strikes against RSF positions, destroying about 240 combat vehicles and killing hundreds of fighters.

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It added that its ground forces had succeeded in pushing RSF fighters out of wide areas in both Darfur and Kordofan and operations were ongoing to pursue remaining elements.

Darfur Governor Minni Arko Minnawi said recent military action by the SAF in Kordofan has prevented the RSF from laying siege on North Kordofan’s capital, el-Obeid.

But Morgan said people on the ground in Kordofan were not reassured by these words and want to see more definitive action from the SAF.

“They want to be able to return to their homes with the RSF withdrawing or retreating from the areas that they have taken over. So far, that is not happening,” she said.

In the meantime, attacks continue. A drone attack carried out by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, an RSF ally, on Monday reportedly killed five people in Habila in South Kordofan State.

The RSF’s recent resurgence in the vast regions of Darfur and Kordofan has displaced millions more people.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity while the RSF has been implicated in atrocities in Darfur that the United Nations said may amount to genocide.

Recently, the UN described el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, as a “crime scene” after gaining access to the largely deserted city for the first time since its takeover by the RSF in October, which was marked by mass atrocities.

International aid staff visited el-Fasher after weeks of negotiations, finding few people remaining in what was once a densely populated city with a large displaced population.

More than 100,000 residents fled el-Fasher after the RSF seized control on October 26 following an 18-month siege. Survivors reported ethnically motivated mass killings and widespread detentions.

Fierce fighting and global funding cuts have pushed more than 33 million people towards starvation in what has become one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises, nongovernmental organisations said on Friday as the war passed its 1,000th day.

The conflict has displaced 11 million people internally and abroad and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis.

Prime Minister Kamil Idris announced on Sunday the government’s return to Khartoum, after nearly three years of operating from its wartime capital of Port Sudan.

In the early days of the civil war, which began in April 2023, the army-aligned government fled the capital, which was quickly overrun by the RSF.

The government has pursued a gradual return to Khartoum since the army recaptured the city.

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“Today, we return, and the government of hope returns to the national capital,” Idris told reporters on Sunday in Khartoum.