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.

A New York Times reporter and photographer were the first Western journalists to visit central Khartoum since the civil war broke out two years ago. The scale of how much has been lost was inescapable.

Sudan’s army recaptured the national capital from the Rapid Support Forces militia, a turning point in a two-year civil war that’s drawn in outside powers and torn the resource-rich North African country apart.