Sudan: RSF turns to mercenaries to seize El Fasher

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said Sunday they had seized the army headquarters in El-Fasher, the last major urban centre in the western Darfur region outside their control. The takeover of the army headquarters could not be independently verified by AFP, and the army and its allied forces did not respond to AFP requests for […]

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces said Sunday they had seized the army headquarters in El-Fasher, the last major urban centre in the western Darfur region outside their control.

The takeover of the army headquarters could not be independently verified by AFP, and the army and its allied forces did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

In a statement, the Popular Resistance – local fighters allied with the army – accused the RSF of a “growing media disinformation campaign” aimed at undermining morale and implying that “entering the division headquarters would mean the fall of El-Fasher”.

The group said residents were still “resisting in the face of terrorist militias”.

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The UN has voiced concern over possible massacres in El-Fasher against non-Arab communities similar to those reported after the RSF captured the nearby Zamzam camp in April.

The RSF have since turned to mercenaries to seize El Fasher, which has been under siege for more than 500 days.

It’s been almost two years into the Sudan’s brutal civil war between the army and the RSF. The conflict has plunged Sudan into one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history, according to UN officials: 150,000 people have been killed, women and girls have been abducted and raped, and nearly 13 million have been forced to flee their homes, in the world’s worst displacement crisis.

About 260,000 people remain trapped in El Fasher as the RSF intensify efforts to take over the city. Aid has not entered the ravaged city for nearly 18 months, and children have been reduced to eating locusts and animal feed.

It is there that the Colombians, fighting for the RSF, have now been dispatched. “War is a business,” said Carlos, one of the Colombian mercenaries helping the RSF to seize the city.

The mercenaries’ involvement first emerged last year, when an investigation by the Bogotá-based outlet La Silla Vacía found that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted to fight – prompting an unprecedented apology by Colombia’s foreign ministry.

But the Colombians’ role has gone beyond the battlefield: fighters have admitted to training Sudanese child soldiers and have been pictured operating in Zamzam, the largest displacement camp in Sudan.

Mohamed Khamis Douda, a spokesman for the camp in Darfur, recently told the Sudan Tribune: “We have witnessed with our own eyes a dual crime: the displacement of our people at the hands of the RSF militia, and now the occupation of the camp by foreign mercenaries.”

The United Arab Emirates – long accused of arming and backing the RSF – has been blamed for hiring the mercenaries, via private security firms. The UAE has consistently denied these allegations.

Carlos’ journey began with medical examinations in Bogotá, where he signed a $2,600-a-month contract. Afterwards, he was flown via Europe to Ethiopia, and then to an Emirati military base in Bosaso, Somalia, he said.

Later, he was taken to Nyala in Sudan, a city now notorious as the hub for Colombian mercenaries.

Carlos, who requested anonymity to speak freely, admitted that his first task was training Sudanese recruits, most of whom were children.

“The camps had thousands of recruits, some adults, but mostly children – lots and lots of children,” he said. “These are children who have never held a weapon. We taught them how to handle assault rifles and machine guns, RPGs. After that, they were sent to the front. We were training them to go and get killed.”

Carlos’s unit was eventually posted to the besieged El Fasher, the country’s worst battleground. RSF fighters have built a 20-mile wall around the city’s boundaries and executed those trying to flee.

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries, says the use of Colombian mercenaries escalated around the 2010s, when ex-combatants were paid to guard oil infrastructure in the UAE. Their role evolved during the war in Yemen.

“The UAE sent a lot of Colombian mercenaries to go and kill the Houthis [rebels] and they were successful in that,” he says.

 

Other mercenaries

However, officers in the Sudanese army told The Telegraph that the Colombians were not only training, but also found on the front lines of Darfur and Kordofan.

They fought, but also appeared to provide specialist drone, communication and jamming skills.

They were also not the only mercenaries used by the RSF, which had also recruited hired guns from Ethiopia and South Sudan, the officers said.

One Sudanese army officer in Darfur, Ahmed Safeldin, said the Colombians had been of limited effectiveness and several had been killed.

“They don’t understand our tactics, and they don’t know the geography or topography of Darfur. That’s why a number of them have been killed. We have recovered official Colombian identity documents to prove it,” he said.

Mohamed Ali, another officer, said: “The Colombian mercenaries have been fighting with the RSF in Sudan since last year and are still here now. We killed them and took their documents to prove any legal case in the future.”

The Sudanese government has also called on the Colombian government and friendly African countries to discourage their citizens from fighting in Sudan.

He said the war can only be suspended if the international community discourage the use of mercenaries.