THE CABLE
Two men are struggling for power in Sudan but it is thousands of innocent people who have to pay the price.
What started out as friendship and deep alliance between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military leader, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, al-Burhan’s deputy and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have metamorphosed into days of chaos and bloodshed dominating global news coverage.
WHO ARE THE TWO MEN AT THE CENTRE OF THE TUSSLE?
The RSF was created in 2013, evolving from the Janjaweed militias, a notorious group accused of war crimes in the Darfur region. The group was also held responsible by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged acts of genocide.
During the Darfur conflict in the 2000s, the government used the group to help the army put down a rebellion. And in 2017, a law legitimising the RSF as an independent security agency was passed.
While all this was happening, Dagalo was working his way up the ranks. As head of the RSF, Dagalo has faced accusations of overseeing the bloody crackdown of pro-democracy activists, including the massacre of 120 protesters in 2019.
Although al-Burhan played an active role in the country’s military during the Darfur conflict, he did not become prominent until 2019 when he instigated the coup of his principal, former President Omar al-Bashir.
