Rapid Support Forces

• 1. Introduction

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  The Rapid Support Forces, a Sudanese paramilitary force known as the RSF, says it has grown at an astonishing pace. On the 6th of May 2026, its leader Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, gave a speech about the size of his army. He said the force had 143,000 soldiers when the war began. Then he gave the current figure: "today, our census stands at 450,000." If true, the force more than tripled during a single war. It is a number from one man, and it raises bigger questions. Where do such fighters come from, and who pays them? Which governments are accused of arming them? What does the group say it stands for, and how does that compare with what human rights researchers have documented? The answers begin with a force that did not start out as an army at all, and they lead to a country fought over by two armed rivals.

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• 2. Janjaweed Roots

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  In April 2013, rebels of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front launched joint attacks in North and South Kordofan. The government answered by reorganizing irregular fighters it already used. These were the Janjaweed, auxiliary militias that Khartoum had deployed against the anti-government insurgency in the war in Darfur. In August 2013, the government restructured and reactivated them as a formal paramilitary organization. Its job was to combat rebel groups in Darfur, South Kordofan and the Blue Nile states. Command went to Hemedti, and he has led the force ever since.

  Hemedti kept the leadership close to home. His brother Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo became deputy head of the force. Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed has served as head of operations.

  Reports on the years 2014 and 2015 describe a force that "repeatedly attacked villages, burned and looted homes, beating, raping and executing villagers". The Sudanese Armed Forces gave it air and ground support. The executions and rapes typically took place in villages after the rebels had already left. Human Rights Watch judged the attacks systematic enough to qualify as crimes against humanity.

  In February 2014, Human Rights Watch estimated the force at about 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers in Darfur. By 2023, according to Reuters, it had more than 100,000 personnel. Many fighters come from Baggara Arab tribes living in Darfur, in Chad, or elsewhere in the Sahel's "Baggara belt". Recruitment that ignores a national border would become one thread in a much wider web of foreign relationships.

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• 3. Gold and Fronts

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  In November 2017, Hemedti used the RSF to seize control of gold mines in the Darfur region. By 2019, that move had helped make him one of the richest people in Sudan. His brother Abdul Rahim, the deputy head, runs the Al Junaid corporation, which is involved in gold mining and trading.

  In December 2019, a Global Witness investigation examined the RSF and Al Junaid together. It argued that the two were closely linked by financial transactions. It also argued that they had captured a swathe of the gold industry and were likely using it to fund operations. Al Junaid's general manager told Thomson Reuters that there were no close links between the company and the force.

  The RSF also has two front companies. One is GSK, a Sudanese technology company. The other is Tradive General Trading LLC, which is based in the United Arab Emirates. Both are controlled by another brother of Hemedti, Algoney Hamdan Dagalo.

  Gold mined in Sudan was sold and sent to Dubai, where Hemedti kept most of his money. Political tension between Sudan and the Emirates rose in late 2023, yet Atef Ahmed, secretary-general of the Goldsmiths Union, affirmed that shipments kept flowing. Exports faced no obstacles and had official approval from Port Sudan, which the army administers.

  A former government staffer named Ahmed Ibrahim said the RSF aimed to "strip Sudan of its national resources", using the country's long Red Sea coast. In April 2023, Al Jazeera reported that the RSF had sought out Western public relations firms to burnish its image. Dubai would appear again and again in the accusations that followed.

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• 4. Hired Abroad

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  By 2016-2017, about 40,000 RSF members were taking part in the Yemeni civil war. They backed the pro-Hadi forces in the Saudi-led intervention, fighting alongside Saudi and Emirati forces. Saudi Arabia organised and financed the deployment, and that money gave the RSF new financial resources. Human Rights Watch suspects RSF and other Sudanese forces in Yemen of war crimes, saying they killed civilians and destroyed infrastructure.

  The Jamestown Foundation reported that the RSF helped create a buffer zone in northern Yemen. Its fighters led the capture of northwestern provinces, particularly Hajjah governorate. In January 2017, they played a role in taking Midi port, believed to be a Houthi supply hub on maritime lines kept by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Yemen's mountainous terrain made ground operations difficult. In December 2018, a New York Times report revealed that children had been recruited and sent to the front line. By October 2019-10,000 members had returned to Sudan.

  Libya offered another posting. In July 2019, during the Western Libya offensive of the Second Libyan Civil War, about 1,000 RSF soldiers supported the Libyan National Army. That army was commanded by Khalifa Haftar and based in Tobruk. It was fighting the internationally recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

  A quieter assignment came from the Khartoum process, an initiative among European and African states, including Sudan, to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. In response, the RSF was deployed to patrol the border with Libya and to round up Eritrean and Ethiopian refugees.

  Later the traffic ran the other way. In November 2024, Colombian fighters were seized in Darfur. They were identified as recruits of Global Security Services Group, a firm based in Abu Dhabi. They had been hired through a Colombia-registered recruitment firm called International Services Agency. The men were taken first to the UAE, then to Benghazi in Libya, and finally to Sudan. The Wall Street Journal reported that mercenaries had become a tool for foreign actors such as the UAE and Egypt seeking a strategic advantage.

  In August 2025, Colombian mercenaries were identified inside the Zamzam camp in Darfur. Nearly 400 former Colombian soldiers had been hired by an Emirati security company and deployed in a unit called the Desert Wolves battalion. The Spanish-speaking men had signed up to guard oil facilities and ended up on the front lines. Abu Dhabi is also where much larger accusations of support for the RSF lead.

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• 5. Emirati Allegations

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  In 2019, Global Witness reported on a document suggesting that the RSF bought over 1,000 vehicles from dealers in the United Arab Emirates during the first six months of that year. Most were Toyota pickup trucks, which can be converted into armed vehicles known as technicals.

  Hemedti met Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in February 2022. In February 2023, the sheikh also met General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces, the commander Hemedti would soon fight.

  In June 2023, the UAE set up a field hospital in Amdjarass, Chad, with the stated goal of assisting Sudanese refugees. African officials said it treated wounded RSF fighters. UN and American officials said the charity, controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, was also an effort to smuggle weapons to the force. The New York Times reported that US intelligence intercepted multiple calls between Hemedti and Sheikh Mansour. Sudanese diplomats describe Sheikh Mansour as his closest ally in the Emirates. The UAE denied arming any side of the conflict.

  In November 2023, accusations from Sudanese military officials led to a diplomatic freeze. In December, the two countries expelled each other's diplomats. That same month, a group of Democratic members of the US Congress called on the UAE to stop its backing. In January 2024, the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan deemed the alleged Emirati support to be credible.

  In March 2024, Sudan's permanent representative to the UN, al-Harith Idriss, sent the Security Council a 78-page complaint. It alleged that the UAE planned and supported the RSF's aggression with help from Chad. It said 1,200 four-wheel-drive vehicles had reached the force. The UAE mission replied that the claims were false and meant to distract from violations inside Sudan. It asked the Sudanese army to attend peace talks with the RSF in Jeddah, and the army declined to attend in May 2024. On the 17th of April 2024, the US envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, said Washington was concerned about reports of Emirati financial support.

  In July 2024, a 41-page document sent to the Security Council claimed that four Emirati passports had been recovered from a wrecked armored vehicle in Omdurman. A source told The Guardian they belonged to UAE intelligence officers. The UAE ambassador to the UN said they belonged to a delegation from a UAE-based humanitarian group, the International Charity Organization, which visited Sudan in May 2022. He added that no photographic proof had been offered.

  On the 9th of September 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that the RSF had newly obtained advanced foreign-made weapons. Companies registered in China, Iran, Russia, Serbia and the UAE were associated with them. Crates marked as made in 2020 had first been acquired by the UAE Armed Forces under a contract with Adasi, a subsidiary of the Edge Group. On the 11th of October 2024, Sudan wrote again to the Council. It included images of artillery ammunition boxes and Dubai-based trucks seized by the army, and said RSF fighters were treated at Zayed Military Hospital in Abu Dhabi.

  On the 14th of November 2024, an Amnesty International investigation found that Nimr vehicles, produced by the Edge Group and fitted with the French Galix system, were in RSF hands. Agnès Callamard called it a violation of the UN arms embargo on Sudan. She urged France to ensure that Lacroix Defense and KNDS France, which designed the Galix system, halted its supply to the UAE.

  The argument reached Washington. In November 2024, Chris Van Hollen and Sara Jacobs filed a joint resolution of disapproval to block arms sales to the UAE, objecting to a new weapons sale worth $1.2 billion. In March 2025, Gregory Meeks halted US arms sales to the UAE over its role in the war and introduced the U.S. Engagement in Sudanese Peace Act. On the 11th of March, Van Hollen and Jacobs reintroduced their own bill, the Stand Up for Sudan Act. In April 2025, Sudan filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing the UAE of breaching the Genocide Convention.

  By late 2025, the pressure had reached London and Ottawa. Keir Starmer's government faced demands to suspend arms sales to the UAE after reports that British-made equipment was being diverted to the RSF. In November 2025, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney drew criticism on a trade mission to the UAE after investigations linked Canadian-made weapons to atrocities in Sudan.

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• 6. Neighbours and Other Backers

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  At Amdjarass in Chad, the RSF maintains facilities that include an airfield, used for logistical support. Chad publicly denies backing the force. Reports say the UAE uses Chad to supply weapons, and Sudan accuses Chad of providing weapons and mercenaries directly. Chad has ceased formal relations with Sudan, and Sudan has denied any ongoing diplomatic contacts with Chad. Ethnic ties among Arab tribes, along with poverty, push Chadian youth to join the RSF, often with or without formal government approval.

  On the 23rd of March 2025, the senior Sudanese army commander Yasir al-Atta warned that the airports of N'Djamena and Amdjarass would be considered legitimate military targets. Sudan claimed the UAE gave the RSF Chinese-made Long Wang 2 strategic drones in December 2024, used in attacks launched from Chad. Al-Atta called the UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed "the devil of Arabs".

  UN reports say the RSF's supply lines also run through Libya. There the force has procured Land Cruisers for its operations, along with oil and weapons, including artillery items and ammunition. RSF leaders and troops have been recorded entering Libya. They have cooperated with Libyan National Army brigades in the south, including salafist Zuwayya brigades. This continued even though Khalifa Haftar's General Command officially ordered the border closed.

  In January 2024, authorities in Gedaref State, Sudan, announced the arrest of six Ethiopian women accused of serving as snipers for the RSF. Reports said they had operated within the group for over a year. Ethiopia is said to offer diplomatic backing, because tensions with Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam align it against Egyptian interests. In February 2025, Addis Ababa hosted a humanitarian conference on Sudan, organized by the UAE, despite criticism from Sudan's government. In February 2026, Reuters reported that Ethiopia was hosting an RSF training camp near the Sudanese border, with Emirati financial and military support. It was the first direct evidence of Ethiopian involvement in the war.

  On the 15th of June 2025, Bellingcat published an investigation of Kenyan-labelled ammunition crates found in an RSF depot near Khartoum. They held 14.5x114mm API cartridges and Type PP87 82mm HE mortar bombs, and the labels showed delivery to the Kenyan Ministry of Defence in 2023-2024. Videos geolocated to Salha, Omdurman, and posted between the 19th and the 21st of May 2025, showed army soldiers with the crates. The army had regained control of the area on the 20th of May. On the 24th of June, the Sudanese government asked Kenya to stop any assistance to the RSF. A Kenyan spokesperson, Mwaura, had called the allegations false and misleading on the 16th of June, saying Kenya's engagement with both sides fell strictly within the IGAD peace process.

  In January 2022, Israeli officials including Mossad members visited Khartoum. Junior and middle-ranking army staff read the visit as Israeli support for the RSF. By April 2023, Israeli authorities were split. Mossad favoured the RSF, while the Foreign Ministry favoured the army. Al Monitor dated Mossad involvement in Sudan to the 1980s, alluding to Operation Moses and Operation Joshua.

  Al Araby TV reported allegations of a link between Hemedti and Russia's Wagner Group. Leaked documents reportedly indicated that Wagner gave his forces training and equipment, including armored vehicles and helicopter gunships. The company allegedly provided security during Hemedti's visit to Russia in 2018. The Sudanese government denied any connection. Business Insider wrote that the two generals, Hemedti and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, "helped Russian President Vladimir Putin exploit Sudan's gold resources to help buttress Russian finances against Western sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine." Wagner reportedly left Sudan in early 2024, as Russia's deputy foreign minister held talks with al-Burhan. Later that year, Russia and Iran began delivering weapons, jet components, fuel and drones to the Sudanese government, which let the army recapture parts of Khartoum from the RSF.

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• 7. Words and Banners

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  On the 18th of April 2023, the RSF removed the word "Quds" from its official logo. The word is an acronym for the Arabic name of the Rapid Support Forces, but it is also the Arabic word for Jerusalem. The revised logo appeared in the group's published statements, while the old slogan stayed on its Facebook and Twitter accounts. Before the change, the RSF had described Hamas as a terrorist movement, and Israel had tried to mediate between the RSF and the army.

  The force's motives are described by academics, journalists and observers as Arab supremacist and economic. The journalist Nicholas Niarchos said that "Arab supremacy is one of the RSF's animating ideas". In 2019, Jérôme Tubiana, an adviser to Médecins Sans Frontières, warned that the group threatened to "transform Sudan from a military regime into a militia state, and replace Islamism with Arab supremacism". The Sudanese human rights advocate Amgad Fareid Eltayeb called it "a fascist decentralized militia". Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, says the RSF and the Janjaweed before it massacred hundreds of thousands of non-Arab civilians and drove millions from their homes. The International Criminal Court has accused the force of genocide, systematic rape and sexual violence, and deliberate starvation. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed that position in the closing days of the Biden administration.

  Yasir Zaidan, a political researcher at the University of Washington, offers a different view. He calls the RSF "ethno-mercenarist" and argues it is fuelled by land disputes, desertification, and local and regional interventions, as well as Arab supremacy ideology. In his picture, the group recruits through Arab ethnic and tribal networks by offering economic incentives. It capitalizes on youth unemployment and access to local gold wealth, and on the patronage of corporate and state actors such as the UAE.

  After the April 2019 revolution, the RSF took a hard line against Islamists. Hemedti claimed to have "exposed all the Islamists' schemes and the terrorists' plans and extremists' plans" after a crackdown in 2023. Nicholas Westcott, director of the Royal African Society, traces this stance to a reaction against Islamist benefactors of Omar al-Bashir, who largely sided with Abdel Fattah al Burhan. Eltayeb calls the anti-Islamist label a way to conceal war crimes under the guise of counter-terrorism. He also says the RSF was built by the Islamist regime under al-Bashir to impose a racist project of promoting Arab supremacy.

  In February 2025, the RSF announced an agreement with its allies to form a secular and democratic "New Sudan" government with a bill of rights. Its allies signed a charter in Nairobi, Kenya, to create a parallel "Government of Peace and Unity" for RSF-controlled areas. Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group said the move was motivated by a desire to "increase its own legitimacy and leverage". A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it would "increase the fragmentation of the country and risk making this crisis even worse". Osama Abuzaid, a researcher affiliated with CEDEJ in Khartoum, feared "a facade of civilian rule without substantive democratisation".

  The RSF has tried to re-employ officials from the pre-war civilian administration. Many civil servants fled, both to escape the fighting and to avoid working with RSF military personnel. That gap has undermined Hemedti's ambition to rise above his warlord persona. In August 2025, the UN Security Council issued a statement against the parallel government. It urged the RSF and the army toward "a credible, inclusive transition to a civilian-led government", and expressed "alarm" about reports of a renewed RSF offensive that week in El Fasher.

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• 8. The War and Its Toll

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  On the 3rd of June 2019, RSF fighters helped break up a peaceful sit-in in Khartoum, in what became known as the Khartoum massacre. The force is accused of killing 100 protesters, injuring 500, raping women and pillaging homes. The Central Committee of Medical Doctors said more than 100 people were killed. There were reports that the RSF tied cement bricks to dead protesters' bodies so they would sink in the Nile and never be found. At least 70 male and female protesters were raped during the massacre and the days after. On the 6th of June 2019, Amnesty International's head, Kumi Naidoo, called for all RSF members to withdraw from policing anywhere in Sudan. In the Central Darfur village of al-Dalij, Janjaweed or RSF fighters shot nine people in the market on the 10th or the 11th of June 2019. Locals read the shooting and the burning of the market as a response to civil disobedience.

  On the 15th of April 2023, fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF broke out after the RSF mobilised in cities across Sudan. Clashes were reported at the presidential palace and army headquarters. The army designated the RSF a rebel group. During the Battle of Khartoum, both sides claimed control of the Khartoum and Merowe airports. On the 17th of April, Antony Blinken held talks with Hemedti, who agreed to a 24-hour armistice starting on the 18th of April, to allow safe passage for civilians and the evacuation of the wounded. A 72-hour ceasefire, mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, followed at midnight on the 24th of April. By the 25th of April, more than 500 people had died. The RSF was supported by Khalifa Haftar and the UAE, and footage of thermobaric shells captured by the army suggested an Emirati supply. Egypt had sent military support to the army.

  During the war, the RSF has reportedly looted houses and evicted residents, committed sexual violence, and used churches and hospitals as shields. In July 2023, authorities reported at least 88 cases of sexual assault on women, most blamed on the RSF. Non-governmental organizations estimated the true figure could reach 4,400. On the 28th of July 2024, Human Rights Watch released an 89-page report titled "Khartoum is Not Safe for Women". It documented widespread sexual violence, including gang rape and forced marriages, committed by the RSF in Khartoum. Both the RSF and the army obstructed humanitarian aid. Since April 2023, the RSF has also intensified forced recruitment in Darfur, Kordofan and Gezira State. Men and boys were taken from homes, villages and camps for displaced people under threat of execution or torture. Those who refused or tried to escape faced killing, torture and enforced disappearance. Abuses against migrants crossing Sudan toward Europe and the unlawful detention of dozens of citizens, including political activists, have also been reported.

  On the 1st of July 2024, the RSF took full control of Singa, and many civilians fled toward Gedaref in eastern Sudan. The day before, the army had targeted the 17th Infantry Division headquarters and other sites. The RSF also secured the Blue Nile Bridge, hinting at a possible push toward al-Dinder. On the 12th of November 2024, the United States sanctioned the RSF commander in East Darfur, Abdel Rahman Jumma, over serious human rights violations. On the 7th of January 2025, the US government officially accused the RSF of genocide. It sanctioned Hemedti with asset freezes and a travel ban, along with seven RSF-owned companies based in the UAE.

  On the 21st of March 2025, the army retook the presidential palace in Khartoum, a symbolic victory. On the 26th of March, it declared the city free of the RSF, ending nearly two years of occupation.

  In October 2025, after an 18-month siege, the RSF captured El Fasher, the largest city in Darfur and the last major army stronghold there. Reports described massacres of unarmed non-Arab civilians. The RSF tortured and shot civilians who tried to leave, carried out door-to-door raids and executions, and committed sexual violence against women and girls. Fighters reportedly executed at least 460 patients and staff in the city's last functioning hospital. Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab analysed satellite imagery showing swaths of civilians killed in the Daraja Oula area. It said the RSF's actions may be consistent with war crimes and crimes against humanity and may rise to the level of genocide. Satellite imagery also suggested that tens of thousands of bodies were buried or burned to cover up the killings. Early estimates put civilian deaths above 2,000, but by December 2025, some tracking estimates placed the total between 60,000 and 68,000 or more.

  After the international outcry, the RSF claimed in late October 2025 to have arrested Issa Abu Lulu, also known as Brig. Gen. Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris. He had appeared in RSF-shared videos killing civilians on the basis of their tribal origin. The RSF denied he was an official member and said he "leads a group fighting alongside us". Hemedti announced an "investigation committee" and promised that "there will be accountability". The Sudanese investigative journalist Eiad Husham reported that "scepticism runs deep". He called the RSF's repeated pattern of distancing itself from field commanders implicated in atrocities a familiar tactic. Hemedti's promise of accountability remains the yardstick against which that skepticism will be tested.

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