Troops of Sudan's regular army advanced on Thursday to within 500 metres of the presidential palace, seized by rival paramilitaries nearly two years ago, a military source said.

AFP journalists reported hearing explosions and gunfire across the capital Khartoum, where fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has intensified in recent days.

During their advance in central Khartoum, army forces "destroyed a Rapid Support Forces convoy of 30 vehicles attempting to withdraw southward", the military source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The fighting around the presidential palace comes amid a major offensive by the army to retake areas of greater Khartoum they lost to the RSF in the early stages of the war which broke out in April 2023.

Deadly war

On Monday, soldiers advancing from the south converged with troops already in the city centre, putting further pressure on the paramilitaries.

The battle for power between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has claimed thousands of lives and uprooted more than 12 million people from their homes.

The conflict has split the country in two, with the army controlling the north and east while the RSF holds sway over much of the west and south.

In the capital, the army has recently retaken Khartoum North – across the Blue Nile from the city centre – as well as East Nile district to its east.

Battles in other Sudanese towns

The RSF still holds several positions in Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman across the White Nile.

Elsewhere in the country, battles have intensified in North Darfur's besieged capital of El-Fasher in recent weeks.

El-Fasher, under siege by the RSF since last May, is the only one of five state capitals in Darfur that is not under paramilitary control, and the RSF has been trying to seize full control of the vast western region.

The army and its allied militias have repelled RSF attacks on El-Fasher, though paramilitary shelling has repeatedly hit the nearby Zamzam displacement camp in what local activists described as retaliation.

Extreme food insecurity

Zamzam is one of three displacement camps around El-Fasher hit by famine, which a UN-backed assessment says is expected to spread to five more areas including the state capital itself by May.

According to UN estimates, around two million people face extreme food insecurity across Sudan, with 320,000 already suffering famine conditions.

In North Darfur alone, nearly 1.7 million people are displaced.

Darfur governor Minni Minnawi said on Thursday that the army and its allied militias were fighting "fierce battles" against the RSF in the area of Malha, a town 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of El-Fasher near the border with Libya and Chad.