The Sudanese army’s offensive across the Nile in the capital, Khartoum, was heralded by a sudden thunder of shelling and air strikes that reverberated through the darkness.

Sudan’s army launched artillery and air strikes in Sudan’s capital on Thursday in its biggest operation to regain ground there since early in its 17-month war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), witnesses and military sources said.

Sudan’s army launched a major offensive to recapture the country’s capital from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The escalation comes despite US-led efforts to broker a ceasefire.

It appears to be the army's first major offensive to regain the capital since the war began last year.

The latest outbreak of fighting comes as nations gathered at the U.N. General Assembly called for an end to the war and for aid to be fast-tracked to millions in need.

New fighting rocked Sudan's capital on Thursday with airstrikes and drone attacks in and around Khartoum amid a worsening cholera outbreak, officials said. Sudan's military launched an operation in the early hours of Thursday aimed at taking control of areas in the capital that had been in the hands of its enemy,