“Mercenaries and Militias in Sudan: The Lucrative Business of War”

2023-05-14 15:59:23

On the Sudanese battlefield, the two warring generals are not only fielding their own troops. Around them gravitate mercenaries, private guards, tribal fighters or foreign instructors, attracted by the lure of gain… and gold.

For decades, the use of militias in Sudan has been a lucrative business: either Khartoum subcontracts to them the repression of ethnic minorities or armed movements, or it hires their services on foreign war grounds.

Thus, from the Sudanese region of Darfur to Mali, via Libya, the Central African Republic or Russia, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces (FSR) have forged long-standing links abroad.

For a time, these feared paramilitaries fought in Yemen for Saudis and Emiratis, in Libya for different camps or elsewhere in the Sahel.

Now that the war is on their soil, the FSR publish on social networks videos of fighters expressing their support in Chad or Niger.

For Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, head of the Sudanese army and great rival of Daglo, known as “Hemedti”, “mercenaries from Chad, the Central African Republic and Niger” are fighting within the enemy forces. The army even recently claimed to have killed “a foreign sniper”.

The UN envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, also repeated: “The number of mercenaries from Mali, Chad and Niger to support the FSR is not insignificant”.
Other mercenaries, like those of the Wagner group support the FSR.

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