Sudan’s army says it has wrested control of the capital Khartoum from a feared militia accused of genocide after ousting it from the Presidential Palace and the city’s airport it had held since the start of a brutal two-year conflict.

The Sudanese army shelled parts of Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman from early morning on Thursday, residents said, after declaring victory over their Rapid Support Forces rivals in a two-year battle for the capital.

Sudan’s army said Wednesday it had recaptured Khartoum’s international airport, and the military chief flew back to the capital for the first time in nearly two years of war, bringing the military closer to regaining full control of the city from the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.

South Sudan’s main opposition party says a peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war has collapsed, following the arrest of its leader Riek Machar a day earlier

The detention of South Sudan's First Vice President Riek Machar has effectively collapsed the peace deal that ended the 2013-2018 civil war, his party said on Thursday.

President Salva Kiir ordered the arrest of Riek Machar, the opposition said, imperiling a 2018 peace deal. Several embassies urged their citizens to leave the country.