Wagner Support for RSF Leads to Carnage in Darfur

ADF STAFF

Bodies lie scattered across El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur in Sudan.

According to reports from the Darfur Bar Association, the dead lie in their homes, in public buildings and in the streets — where the bodies are sometimes piled into makeshift barricades. All are victims of rampaging fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

West Darfur Gov. Khamees Abakar was captured and executed. RSF Gen. Abdelrahman Juma, one of those who kidnapped Abakar, is now in control of the region.

The region’s Masalit ethnic group recently reported that the carnage in West Darfur has left 5,000 people dead and more than 8,000 injured in what the Sultanate of Dar Masalit described as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.”

“Entire families have been exterminated and buried in mass graves along the way,” Mojeebelrahman Yagoub, the assistant commissioner for refugees in West Darfur, told Radio Dabanga.

In North Darfur, at least 40 people were killed or injured when the RSF attacked the community of Kuttum. Among the dead was a 65-year-old woman who died when RSF fighters burned her house down.

As the RSF extends its fight with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) from the streets of Khartoum to the Darfur region, the violence is a reminder of the genocidal attacks waged against the residents of Darfur 20 years ago by the Janjaweed, the precursor to the RSF.

Now, as then, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, leads the assault on non-Arab communities across Darfur, where the RSF has its own headquarters. Unlike 20 years ago, however, Hemedti now has the support of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries, who have trained RSF fighters and now supply them with weapons from bases in Libya.

Hemedti and Wagner have developed a close bond in recent years based, in part, on their shared business of mining and smuggling Sudan’s gold out of the country. Hemedti’s portion of the operation has made him one of Sudan’s wealthiest men. Wagner’s proceeds from gold smuggling finance Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Since April 15, Hemedti has been locked in a battle for supremacy with Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the SAF and the de facto leader of Sudan following the 2021 coup that disrupted the transition to civilian rule.

While the RSF and SAF are nearly evenly matched in manpower, the SAF benefits from heavy weapons and airpower, which it has used to attack RSF positions in Khartoum and its suburbs. From its base in Libya, Wagner flew in shipments of anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons designed to help the RSF even the odds.

Sudan’s civilians are caught in the crossfire of the warring parties.

Nearly 2 million Sudanese people have been displaced internally and almost 600,000 have fled to neighboring countries, with the majority of those seeking safety in Chad, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The South Darfur capital, Nyala, which became a refuge for people fleeing the Janjaweed two decades ago, is feeling the brunt of attacks from the RSF.

“Today I left Nyala because of the war,” Saleh Haroun, a 38-year-old resident of the city, told Reuters recently. “Yesterday there was bombardment in the streets and bullets going into homes.”