Last month, Ali Rizkallah, a commander in the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, was welcomed to Sudan’s capital Khartoum and given a uniform and a rank in the armed forces he had spent about three years fighting.
The army-affiliated government hailed his defection — the latest in a series of high-level switches that have been reshaping Sudan’s alliances and boosting the military in one of the deadliest conflicts of the century.
‘I CAN’T FORGIVE THEM,’ SAYS DARFUR WOMAN
“These RSF soldiers, even if they seek God’s forgiveness, I can’t forgive them because of what I saw face to face,” Halima Ismail, a woman in western Darfur, told Reuters.
She described Rizkallah’s forces firing in the air during an attack on a village where she was sheltering in 2024.
Sudan’s civil war is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and spread famine and disease since the RSF and army fell out and began fighting in April 2023.
Some of the worst violence has occurred in Darfur, the RSF stronghold where Rizkallah – widely known as “al-Savannah” – served as a commander. The RSF was accused of atrocities during its assault on the city of al-Fashir last October, the subject of a Reuters documentary.
Another top North Darfur commander, al-Nour Guba, also defected to the military in April. In an interview with Reuters, Guba denied defecting to evade justice and said any former RSF commanders who committed crimes should be held accountable.
“If anyone from the Sudanese people has anything against us, I swear we are ready,” he said.
Savannah, who did not respond to requests for comment, has said publicly he would hand himself over if accused of wrongdoing. Sudan’s military-affiliated government and the RSF, which has denied committing atrocities in Darfur, did not respond to requests for comment.
CALLS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
Ismail, now sheltering in the Darfur village of Tawila, said she had been forced to flee multiple times as the RSF raided villages around al-Fashir. She said she saw women raped in front of her and was whipped by RSF fighters.
“You can see the scars on my arms, all the way down my legs,” she said.
During one assault by a unit under Rizkallah’s command, fighters fired weapons into the air, forcing her and her children to the ground, she said.
Resentment also runs high in the neighbouring Kordofan region. A trader in the town of al-Nuhud said he plans to file a private case against Rizkallah under Sudan’s sharia law system over what he said was the looting of peanuts and gum arabic from his warehouses by one of his units.
“What happened is the responsibility of Savannah, the RSF, and the army that did not protect us,” the trader said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being targeted.
Source: Reuters
