in 1898 and
Bahri. The
White Nile flowing from the south is joined by the
Blue Nile flowing from the east. which connects the city to
Khartoum After the
siege of Khartoum, followed by the building of the tomb of
the Mahdi after his death from
typhus, the city grew rapidly. However, in the
Battle of Omdurman in 1898 (which actually took place in the nearby village of Kerreri),
Lord Kitchener decisively defeated the
Mahdist forces. The following year British forces defeated
Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, the
Khalifa, as the
Battle of Umm Diwaykarat; ensuring
British control over the Sudan. In September 1898, the British army of twenty thousand well drilled men equipped with the latest arms,
Maxim guns and
Martini-Henry rifles under the command of General Horatio Herbert Kitchener
invaded Sudan. In the battle of Omdurman, the British Army faced Sudanese defenders consisting of over 52,000 poorly armed desert tribesmen dervishes; in the space of five hours the battle was over. The Sudanese defenders suffered many casualties, with at least 10,000 killed. By contrast there were fewer than four hundred casualties on the British side with forty-eight British soldiers losing their lives. Then, General Kitchener proceeded to order the desecration of
the Mahdi's tomb and in the words of
Winston Churchill, "carried off the Mahdi's head in a kerosene can as a trophy". Kitchener restored Khartoum as the capital and, from 1899 until 1956 Sudan was jointly governed by Great Britain and Egypt. Although most of the city was destroyed in the battle,
the Mahdi's tomb was restored and refurbished. On 10 May 2008, the
Darfur rebel group of the
Justice and Equality Movement moved into the city where they engaged in heavy
fighting with Sudanese government forces. Their goal was to topple
Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government. During the
Sudanese civil war, the
city was occupied by the
Rapid Support Forces between April 2023 and May 2025. == Geography ==