Sawt Falasteen - 'We're going home': Joy in Port Sudan after army victories in Khartoum

"The joy has spread everywhere," said Khartoum native Motaz Essam as crowds swayed to music blaring from makeshift sound systems.

"God willing, we're going home, we'll finally celebrate Eid in our own homes," he said, though the war-ravaged capital is far from the city he once knew.

Hours earlier, standing inside Khartoum's presidential palace -- its walls blackened, windows shattered -- army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had declared the city "free".

The war erupted in April 2023, just days before the Eid al-Fitr festival at the end of Ramadan, between Burhan and his former deputy, Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Khartoum quickly became a battleground, with RSF fighters overrunning state institutions and driving more than 3.5 million people from the city.

Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, later became the de facto capital, hosting government ministries, the United Nations and hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

Its fragile infrastructure and makeshift shelters have struggled under shortages of water, food and electricity, leaving many exhausted and hopeless.

On Wednesday night, some wept as they clapped along to the music during the celebrations in Port Sudan, an AFP correspondent reported.

"The second they tell us Khartoum is ready, the next morning we'll be there, we'll return to our homes and our loved ones and our neighbours," said Ahmed Ibrahim, as ululations and fireworks echoed around him.

"To leave everything behind, your neighbours and your little home, your things and your own place, to go stranded from city to city, is horrible."

- Ecstatic but still fearful -

The war has killed tens of thousands and uprooted more than 12 million people, many forced to flee multiple times as front lines shifted.

For the first time this month, UN data showed a drop in the total number of displaced people, with nearly 400,000 returning to army-held areas in central Sudan.

"However, those who are going back are returning to areas with very little in the way of adequate shelter, food, infrastructure, education and other basic services," the UN's migration agency warned.

Khartoum remains a shell of its former self, its streets pockmarked with makeshift graves, entire neighbourhoods abandoned and looted.

"We will rebuild what the war has destroyed," Ibrahim said.

Despite the army's claims, the war is far from over.

"We're ecstatic at the news, but we have real fears that the militia could return and the cycle of war keeps going," said Afaf Omar, 38, from Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum.

"Especially that the RSF is still shelling Omdurman" from their positions on the city's western and southern outskirts, she told AFP.

Sudan remains divided, with the army holding the north and east while the RSF controls nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

"We hope, in these last holy days of Ramadan, for more victories in all corners of Sudan, in El-Fasher, in Nyala, in El-Geneina," Essam said.

He was referring to state capitals in Darfur, all of them under RSF control except El-Fasher, where the UN on Wednesday warned an estimated 825,000 children were trapped in heavy fighting.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST