Three civilians, including two children, were killed on Sunday in an artillery attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Omdurman, part of Greater Khartoum, a medical source told AFP.

Eyewitnesses in the area said the strikes were some of the heaviest in recent months, coming two days after the army recaptured the capital's presidential palace in a major symbolic victory.

Since April 2023, the RSF has been fighting Sudan's regular army in a war that has killed thousands, uprooted over 12 million and created the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

Analysts have warned that the army's gains, while significant, are unlikely to end a war marked by mass atrocities against civilians, including bombs and artillery routinely hitting homes and markets.

Seven rounds of shelling

"Before, there used to be four or five rounds of shelling, and there was time between one strike and the next," one resident told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.

"This morning there were seven, one right after the other," he said.

The medical source, who is at Al-Nao hospital, one of the city's last functioning health facilities, said "two children and a woman were killed and eight others injured in the shelling."

In recent days, the army and allied armed groups have regained most of Khartoum proper's government district, just across the Nile from Omdurman.

Deadly attack in February

RSF fighters remain stationed in parts of the city centre including the airport, as well as the capital's south and west.

From their positions in western Omdurman, they have regularly launched strikes on civilian areas.

In February, over 50 people were killed in a single RSF artillery attack on a busy Omdurman market.

After a year and a half of humiliating army defeats, the tide seemed to turn late last year, when a military counteroffensive through central Sudan dislodged the RSF from key bases.

Retaken much of Khartoum

Since January, the army has retaken much of the capital Khartoum, pushing the paramilitary into holdout pockets and the outskirts of the city.

On Friday, the army and allied armed groups seized the country's presidential palace, which the RSF had used since the start of the war to house elite forces and stockpile ammunition.

The paramilitary force responded with what it called a "lightning operation" including a drone strike that killed three journalists and a number of army personnel.

The military has since launched a clearing operation to push the RSF out of the city centre, on Saturday retaking several strategic state institutions including the central bank, state intelligence headquarters and the national museum.

'Fierce battle' near airport

An RSF source on Saturday told AFP the paramilitary had "withdrawn from some locations" but that forces were waging "a fierce battle" near the airport.

The army has also seized key infrastructure, pushing on Saturday through Tuti Bridge to reclaim Tuti Island, which sits at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles in the centre of Greater Khartoum and has been under paramilitary control for nearly two years.

Despite the army's advances in the capital, Africa's third-largest country remains effectively split in two, with the army holding the east and north while the RSF controls nearly all of the western region of Darfur and parts of the south.