The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of widespread abuses in Sudan, including the 3 June massacre in which more than 120 people were reportedly killed, with many of the dead dumped in the River Nile.
The RSF are now the real ruling power in Sudan. The RSF was formally established by decree of then-President Omar al-Bashir in 2013. But their core of 5,000 militiamen had been armed and active long before then. They are a new kind of regime: a hybrid of ethnic militia and business enterprise, a transnational mercenary force that has captured a state. Their commander is General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, and he and his fighters have come a long way since their early days as a rag-tag Arab militia widely denigrated as the "Janjaweed".
The core of the Janjaweed were camel-herding nomads from the Mahamid and Mahariya branches of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining areas of Chad - they ranged across the desert edge long before the border was drawn. During the 2003-2005 Darfur war and massacres, the most infamous Janjaweed leader was Musa Hilal, chief of the Mahamid. Bashir formalised them into a paramilitary force called the Border Intelligence Units.
Hemeti was offered a sweet deal: back pay for his troops, ranks for his officers (he became a brigadier general), and a handsome cash payment. His troops were put under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), at that time organising a proxy war with Chad. Hemeti's fighters, serving under the banner of the Chadian opposition, fought their way as far as the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, in 2008.
In 2013, a new paramilitary force was formed under Hemeti and called the RSF, made answerable to Mr Bashir himself - the president gave Hemeti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector". Training camps were set up near the capital, Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted out with machine guns.
By 2017, gold sales accounted for 40% of Sudan's exports. And Hemeti was keen to control them. He already owned some mines and had set up a trading company known as al-Junaid. In November 2017. Run by his relatives, the Al-Junaid company had become a vast conglomerate covering investment, mining, transport, car rental, and iron and steel. The RSF took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines.
Hemeti became the country's biggest gold trader and Dubai is the destination for almost all of Sudan's gold, official or smuggled. But Hemeti's contacts with the UAE soon became more than just commercial. In 2015, the Sudanese government agreed to send a battalion of regular forces to serve with the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces in Yemen - its commander was Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now chair of the ruling Transitional Military Council. But a few months later, the UAE struck a parallel deal with Hemeti to send a much larger force of RSF fighters, for combat in south Yemen and along the Tahama plain - which includes the port city of Hudaydah, the scene of fierce fighting last year. Hemeti also provided units to help guard the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen.
The RSF's strength had grown tenfold. Its command structure didn't change: all are Darfurian Arabs, its generals sharing the Dagolo name. With 70,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry, the one force capable of controlling the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.
By controlling the border with Chad and Libya the RSF is also the biggest border guard. Under the Khartoum Process, the European Union funded the Sudanese government to control migration across the Sahara to Libya. Although the EU consistently denies it, many Sudanese believe that this gave license to the RSF to police the border, extracting bribes, levies and ransoms - and doing its share of trafficking too.
Through gold and officially sanctioned mercenary activity, Hemeti came to control Sudan's largest "political budget" - money that can be spent on private security, or any activity,without needing to give an account.
Hemeti is one of the richest men in Sudan - probably with more ready cash than any other politician - and was at the centre of a web of patronage, secret security deals, and political payoffs. It is no surprise that he moved swiftly to take the place of his fallen patron. Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially. Every week he is seen in the news, handing cash to the police to get them back on the streets, to electric workers to restore services, or to teachers to have them return to the classrooms. He handed out cars to tribal chiefs.
As the UN-African Union peacekeeping force drew down in Darfur, the RSF took over their camps - until the UN put a halt to the withdrawal. Hemeti says he has increased his RSF contingent in Yemen and has despatched a brigade to Libya to fight alongside the rogue general Khalifa Haftar, presumably on the UAE payroll, but also thereby currying favour with Egypt which also backs Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army. Hemeti has also signed a deal with a Canadian public relations firm to polish his image and gain him political access in Russia and the US.
Hemeti is a wholly 21st Century phenomenon: a military-political entrepreneur, whose paramilitary business empire transgresses territorial and legal boundaries.
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