Two years into a civil war, troops recaptured the palace in Khartoum, routing a paramilitary foe. Civilians have been trapped in the middle in a city with an apocalyptic air.

Sudan’s military says it retook the Republican Palace in Khartoum, the last heavily guarded bastion in the capital of rival paramilitary forces, after nearly two years of fighting.

The Sudanese army seized full control of the presidential palace in downtown Khartoum on Friday, it said in a statement, in what would be a major gain in a two-year-old conflict with a rival armed group that has threatened to partition the country.