From the Janjaweed to the RSF: How Sudan's War Began

From the Rapid Support Forces. And why do they commit these crimes?

This is a map of Sudan, with its heart at the center.

Khartoum is the center of the state and its power.

And in the far west is El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

To understand what's happening today, we have to go back to Darfur.

In 2003, a rebellion broke out against Omar al- Bashir's government.

It was led by groups who said Darfur was marginalized and that power and wealth were monopolized in Khartoum.

We rose up for justice and freedom. We rode donkeys while they rode in cars.

The government confronted the rebellion in a way that created a catastrophe.

We made the decision to form these forces.

It armed nomadic tribal groups and called them the Janjaweed.

Jinn riding horses. The Janjaweed fought the rebels but also attacked civilian villages, especially those of the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa tribes.

People were killed, villages were burned, and millions were displaced.

But the Janjaweed didn't disappear after the major battles ended and Bashir's government won.

In 2013, parts of these groups were brought together and reorganized under a law, a leadership, and a new official name.

The Rapid Support Forces. Its leader was Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Hemedti.

Over time, Hemedti became more than just a militia leader on the outskirts.

His forces grew, his influence spread, and he gained control of the gold.

Until, after Bashir's fall, he became deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council.

In his speeches, Hemedti presented himself as a representative of the periphery in opposition to the central state.

The people of the periphery who fought for the state then had power and wealth denied to them by the people of Khartoum and the center.

I am a simple son of the desert. I grew up in the remote corners of Sudan, and the state never even gave our communities a sniff of its attention.

Tensions began between Sudan's state institutions and the Rapid Support Forces.

We had to sound the alarm. Sudan's state institutions and the international community called for the Rapid Support Forces to be integrated into the army.

A country can't have two armies independent of each other.

Hemedti, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, rejected every attempt by the army to convince him to merge the forces.

After a series of events, war broke out in Khartoum.

Here's its map. Here is Khartoum, between the two Niles.

To its west is Omdurman. And to its north, after crossing the Blue Nile, is Khartoum North.

Three cities on the map, as if they were one city, called Khartoum State.

On the morning of April 15, 2023, it became a battlefield.

Here in central Khartoum is the army's General Command headquarters.

Burhan, the army chief and head of the Sovereignty Council, was inside.

Nearby are the Guest House, the Republican Palace, and Khartoum International Airport.

As for the Rapid Support Forces, they had been deployed in the capital before the war as security forces at the military camps in Soba, and at the Sports City south of Khartoum, in Kafouri and Shambat in Khartoum North, and at other locations around Omdurman.

So the army and the Rapid Support Forces weren't stationed on two fronts far apart from each other, they were intermingled within one city.

Days before the war, Hemedti sent additional forces to Merowe Air Base in northern Sudan.

The army rejected their movement and demanded they withdraw.

Tensions rose, and mediation efforts began but none of them succeeded.

And the openings took place without the approval of the armed forces leadership.

At around 8:30 on the morning of Saturday, April 15, The shooting began near the Rapid Support Forces camp in Soba and the Sports City.

And to this day, each side says the other started it.

Who fired the first shot?