๐ธ๐ฉ Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting the country's army since April 2023, is splintering from within as its leaders tighten their grip on power, Mada Masr reports, citing sources inside the RSF leadership and former advisors.
๐น The RSF is run by two brothers: commander Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo and his deputy, Abdel Rahim. It relies on tribal leaders in Darfur, its western stronghold, to supply fighters.
๐นBut in August, when Abdel Rahim met elders from the Dagalos' own Rizeigat tribe in the East Darfur city of Daein and asked them to mobilize more men, they refused, citing wounded fighters and sons who never came home. When one told him to go persuade the families himself, Abdel Rahim accused them of colluding with the army and threatened them with prison. "You don't threaten us with prison," one replied.
๐น The group has depended on local commanders who know their communities to recruit fighters and hold territory. But as those commanders gained power, the Dagalo leadership came to see them as threats. One commander who helped the RSF seize Wad Madani, a major city south of Khartoum, defected to the army in 2024 with hundreds of fighters. The RSF then retaliated against communities linked to him.
๐น Last year the RSF captured El-Fasher, the army's last stronghold in Darfur, after an 18-month siege and brutal mass ethnic cleansing massacre. Afterward, a key commander in that battle was passed over for a promotion in favor of a member of the Dagalos' own clan. He defected too, and others from his tribe followed.
๐น The cracks have also reached the RSF's attempt to build a rival government. A close advisor to Hemedti defected in June, followed by one of its regional governors.
๐น With tribal leaders reluctant, the RSF has turned to forced recruitment, a former advisor said. It has detained displaced people in North Darfur and taken them to the RSF stronghold of Nyala for military training, and has chased down young men in the city's markets to conscript them.
"The real fear is not that the [RSF] loses a city," a Darfur tribal figure told Mada Masr. "It is that it loses the idea that made people believe it could govern Sudan."