Footage on social media showed people celebrating in the streets as army soldiers entered the city of Wad Madani.

The leader of paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, acknowledged the loss in an audio message.

His admission was angry and rambling, attributing the defeat to the army’s air superiority and use of Iranian-made drones.

But he vowed to continue fighting until victory, even if it took another 20 years.

Wad Madani is the capital of the state of Al Jazira, and is 87 miles (140km) south of the country’s capital, Khartoum.

Violence broke out between the army and RSF in April 2023 following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.

The war has claimed tens of thousands of lives. And in what the United Nations has called one of the world’s “largest displacement crises”, about nine million people have been forced to flee their homes.

The country is also slipping into a famine, with 24.6 million people – about half the population – in urgent need of food aid, experts said.

Earlier this month, the US sanctioned the RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo after it accused the group of committing genocide.

Officials said he was being punished for his role in “systematic” atrocities against the Sudanese people during the 20-month conflict.

The Federal Ministry of Health blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the attack, which took place on Friday.

Officials say the group fired four rocket-propelled grenades towards the city’s main healthcare facility.

A resistance committee in el-Fasher, involved in relief efforts, said the attack targeted the Saudi hospital, forcing it to suspend medical services. It was the last remaining open hospital in the city.

The Sudanese army and RSF have been fighting in el-Fasher since May 10. The city has been a hub for humanitarian efforts in Darfur by the United Nations and other international aid agencies.

Friday’s strike was the latest in a wave of devastating attacks in the region this week.

On Monday, more than 100 people – including women and children – were killed in an air strike on an open-air market in Kabkabiya, a town in northern Darfur, about 180km (111 miles) from el-Fasher, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers.

Human rights groups condemned the Sudanese army for the attack.

“Bombing a market full of civilians is one of the clearest examples of a war crime that exists,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International regional director for East and Southern Africa.

On Tuesday, the RSF also shelled the Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. The attack killed five people, according to the civil society group Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.

The mounting civilian casualties come amid continuing clashes across the country between the Sudanese army and RSF.

On Tuesday, the RSF targeted an army-controlled area within the city of Omdurman in Khartoum – Sudan’s second-most populous city – with heavy artillery fire.State-aligned Khartoum Governor Ahmed Othman Hamza said the attack killed at least 65 people.

More than 16,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, with another 10 million displaced and 25 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

The Sudanese army, led by al-Burhan, accuses the UAE of providing weapons to its rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, and prolonging the war in Sudan.

The UAE has rejected the allegations and accused the army of refusing to negotiate peace with its enemy.

Erdogan suggested in the call on Friday that Turkey step in to resolve disputes between Sudan and the UAE, just as it has mediated a dispute between Horn of Africa neighbours Somalia and Ethiopia, the Turkish presidency said in a statement without elaborating.

The Turkish president also emphasised to al-Burhan Turkiye’s main principles of protecting Sudan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and preventing the country from becoming an arena of foreign intervention, the presidency said.

In a separate statement by the governing Sudan Sovereign Council, al-Burhan said he welcomed any role Turkiye could play in ending the war and called for greater Turkish investment in Sudan.

“He expressed his confidence in the position of the Turkish president and government in support of the Sudanese people and their choices,” the statement said.

Sudan has been mired in war since mid-April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to Darfur and other regions.More than 13 million people have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict began.

About 25 million people in war-torn Sudan face acute food shortages with famine declared in the huge Zam Zam camp for displaced people in western Darfur.In an interview with The Associated Press news agency on Thursday, World Food Programme (WFP) official Carl Skau cited progress over the past month in getting clearances to deliver aid across conflict lines and the border from Chad. And with roads drying up at the end of the rainy season, the WFP is able to deliver “much more food”, Skau said.

One convoy reached Zam Zam and two others were on the way but have been held up because of fighting in the past 10 days in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, Skau said.

It is the only capital in Darfur still held by Sudanese forces. The others are held by the RSF.WFP aid reached about 2.6 million people this month, Skau said, stressing that the international community should have done more to address the Sudan crisis “and needs to do more going forward”.