KHARTOUM — Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said Wednesday its fighters seized a strategic zone on the border with Egypt and Libya, as the regular army announced its withdrawal from the area.

 

The announcements came a day after the army accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of launching a cross-border attack alongside the RSF, the first allegation of direct Libyan involvement in the Sudanese war.

 

"As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area overlooking the borders between Sudan, Egypt and Libya," army spokesman Nabil Abdallah said in a statement.

 

Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has pitted army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his erstwhile ally Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the RSF.

 

In a statement on Wednesday, the RSF said its fighters had "liberated the strategic triangle area", adding that army forces had retreated southward "after suffering heavy losses".

 

The army said on Tuesday that Haftar's troops in coordination with the RSF attacked its border positions in a move it called "a blatant aggression against Sudan".

 

It also described the latest clash as part of a broader foreign-backed conspiracy.

 

Haftar's forces could not be immediately reached for comment.

 

Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has long maintained close ties with both the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

 

While Cairo has supported Sudan's leadership under Burhan since the war began in April 2023, Khartoum has repeatedly accused the UAE of supplying the RSF with weapons -- claims the Emirati government denies.

 

Tensions between Khartoum and Abu Dhabi escalated in May after drone strikes hit the wartime capital of Port Sudan for the first time since the outbreak of the war.

 

After the attacks, Sudan severed its diplomatic ties with the UAE and declared it an "aggressor state".

 

The war has effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the centre, east and north, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

 

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced 13 million, including four million who fled abroad, triggering what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

 

Efforts by international mediators to halt the fighting have so far failed, with violence continuing to escalate across the western Darfur region and the Kordofan region in the country's south.