Massacres, rape, plunder: What's driving the Rapid Support Forces' spiral of violence in Sudan?

Reports of extreme violence coming out of Sudan’s east-central state of Gezira indicate mass killings, torture, and sexual violence against civilians in recent attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Local sources have documented at least 124 people killed and 150 others abducted in the village of Alseriha, in the agricultural Gezira province lying between the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers, in an assault launched by RSF fighters between 20 and 25 October. Women and girls were sexually attacked, scores were injured, private and public properties were looted, and more than 46,500 people were displaced.

In a report by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission released two weeks ago, the paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s national army was accused of extensive “atrocious crimes” carried out in areas under their control.

The inquiry’s findings revealed that the majority of rape and sexual and gender-based violence was committed by the RSF, documented mainly in Greater Khartoum, Darfur, and Gezira, part of a pattern aimed at terrorising and punishing civilians for “perceived links with opponents and suppressing any opposition to their advances”.

An earlier UN report in September concluded that both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and their allied militias, are responsible for large-scale human rights abuses, including acts that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The RSF are eyeing their opportunity for booty and the ease of sexual assault,” Eric Reeves, an American academic who has been researching Sudan for over 20 years, told The New Arab, expressing shock. “They will seek and move into any territory in which they find the least resistance.”

He observed that while the SAF is slowly making progress it hasn’t exerted real pressure on Gezira state, which in his view accounts for the ferocious spiral of violence there.

The RSF’s horrendous violations took place just days after the defection of one of its top commanders in the region, Abu Aqla Kikal, to the SAF, which observers say triggered retaliatory attacks on villages and towns seen as loyal to Kikal.

The group has conducted a string of offensives in east-central Sudan after recently losing ground to the military in the area. Since September, the Sudanese army has been conducting a major operation to retake territories in and around the capital, Khartoum, held by the RSF.

According to Sudan expert Cameron Hudson, the events in Gezira carry a deeper motivation that goes beyond mere retribution for Kikal’s defection.

“It’s not chaos and destruction out of lack of command or control but rather an intentional effort to terrorise and ethnically cleanse a region,” Hudson, a senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), emphasised, noting that the sheer scale of violence in the province is a “pattern” witnessed over the past 20 years across various regions where the Rapid Support Forces have repeatedly committed such crimes.

The analyst remarked that RSF fighters typically engage in brutal actions against civilians in areas where there is little or no presence of the Sudanese military. “That’s when they’re able to go on these rampages,” he said. “When they exercise control over civilian populations, the result is a real uptick in sexual violence."

Hudson explained that the RSF’s extreme fighting mode should be viewed in light of key losses the militia has suffered in Khartoum and Omdurman and the recent US sanctions against one of its leaders. He also envisioned that the group would face more senior-level defections in the coming period.

The RSF gained control of nearly the entire Gezira province in December last year after it violently seized several cities including the state capital, Wad Madani, south of Khartoum, as the SAF retreated from the country’s second-largest city.

During the paramilitary advance there were reports of residents killed, sexually assaulted, and arrested, while civilian areas were looted and valuables stolen, causing thousands to flee, many of whom had lived in the state for decades as farmers. Agricultural production has since come to a halt in RSF-controlled areas due to insecurity and the pillage of farming equipment, seeds, and fertilisers.

Known to be Sudan’s breadbasket, Gezira produced half of all wheat grown in the country before the war. It has now turned into one of Sudan's most food-insecure states.

Sudanese freelance journalist Eyad Husham highlighted the disastrous impact of the raging war on national food availability given Sudan’s “heavy dependency” on the east-central province for grain production, which has consequently exacerbated the nationwide famine.

“The RSF intends to take control of the agricultural heartland, make sure there is no resistance from the local communities, and use Gezira to capture other SAF-held territories next,” Husham told TNA, anticipating that the militia will likely push into the east as fighting is expected to intensify this month with the rainy season drawing to a close.

While strongly deploring the RSF’s indiscriminate attacks targeting civilians in Gezira, the Sudanese reporter pointed out that some locals have chosen to arm themselves for “self-defence only” in the face of the paramilitaries’ brutal actions in the villages and towns they invaded.

With staggering levels of vicious abuses perpetrated against the Sudanese people in more than 18 months of fighting, the RSF has undoubtedly failed to achieve any legitimacy within Sudan despite its significant territorial gains.

The RSF's strategy can no longer rely entirely on military dominance, as remaining a militia grounded in violence and coercion will only hinder its pursuit of power.

“The RFS have no local popular support, no ideology. It’s simply lust for power and money,” Reeves said.

The group evolved from the notorious Janjaweed militias that fought in a conflict in the early 2000s in the Darfur region, where they were mobilised by former long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir to help the army put down a rebellion. The Janjaweed gained a ruthless global reputation for perpetrating genocide and ethnic cleansing during the Darfur conflict. In 2013, the militia was restructured into the Rapid Support Forces, which is now estimated to have about 100,000 fighters.

The massacre in Gezira comes amid the ongoing brutality of the war in Sudan that broke out in April 2023 when rising tensions between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state and national army chief, and the paramilitary force commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), flared into open conflict.

The ruthless SAF-RSF power struggle has killed an estimated 62,000 people - though the real toll could be far higher - and displaced over 11 million since the conflict began. At least 25 million people, over half of Sudan’s population, are facing acute hunger.

Several external actors backing the warring parties, who are implicated in widespread war crimes and atrocities, have been involved in supplying weapons and other support to the SAF and RSF, including Egypt, Iran, Russia, and the UAE.

Research published by Amnesty International in July documented how recently manufactured foreign weapons had been transferred into and around Sudan.

In particular, a UN report in January cited “credible” evidence that the UAE was providing arms and ammunition to the RSF. Abu Dhabi’s ongoing arms supplies have likely enabled paramilitary fighters to commit the latest atrocities in Gezira among other serious abuses across the country.

Reeves argued that although the RSF as well as the SAF should be condemned for their actions, some differentiation is needed to “choose between the lesser of two evils”, and the US needs to make serious reconsideration of what it means to have the UAE as an ally.

“The RSF is exceedingly more evil, it’s tearing the country apart. It simply must be stopped,” the Sudan researcher said.

As the war presses on without slowing, both parties to the conflict are clearly unwilling to negotiate, with each believing in a military victory on the ground.

The inaction of the international community means there is no diplomatic pressure being put on regional countries that support the warring parties with funding and arms.

“The decision to end the war is not in the hands of Burhan or Hemedti,” Husham said. He thinks global powers haven’t pushed for an end to hostilities because they have yet to find common ground that satisfies their regional allies in terms of securing their interests in Sudan. “They still haven’t divided the cake yet, so the global community doesn’t know how to handle the situation,” the Sudanese journalist added.

For Hudson, the global community, especially the United States, is “running away” from the problem, choosing instead not to use tools such as labelling the RSF a terrorist group, sanctioning its leadership, or pressing the UAE to stop fuelling the war.

The Sudan specialist expects the fighting to continue and deepen, particularly since violations carried out by both sides, whether assaulting civilians or impeding the delivery of humanitarian aid, have gone unpunished.

Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist currently based in Tunis.

Follow her on Twitter: @AlessandraBajec