He made his money selling camels and gold, now this warlord controls half of Sudan
• Last month, he was found guilty on 27 counts of war crimes
Alex de Waal
BBCMohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, has emerged as a dominant figure on Sudan’s political stage, with his paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) now controlling half of the country.
The RSF scored a notable victory recently when it overran the city of el-Fasher, the last garrison held by the Sudanese army and its local allies in the western region of Darfur.
El-Fasher residents are suffering from famine following the RSF’s 18-month siege of the city, a UN-accredited group of food security experts confirmed on Monday.
Feared and loathed by his adversaries, his followers admire Hemedti for his tenacity, ruthlessness, and his promise to tear down a discredited state.
Hemedti has humble origins. His family is from the Mahariya section of the camel-herding, Arabic-speaking Rizeigat community that spans Chad and Darfur.
He was born in 1974 or 1975—like many from a rural background, his date and place of birth were not registered.
Led by his uncle Juma Dagalo, his clan moved into Darfur in the 1970s and 80s, fleeing war and seeking greener pastures and were allowed to settle.
After dropping out of school in his early teens, Hemedti earned money trading camels across the desert to Libya and Egypt.
At the time, Darfur was Sudan’s Wild West— poor, lawless, and neglected by the government of then-President Omar al-Bashir.
Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed - including a force commanded by Juma Dagalo - were attacking the villages of the indigenous Fur ethnic group.
This cycle of violence led to a full-scale rebellion in 2003, in which Fur fighters were joined by Masalit, Zaghawa and other groups, saying the country’s Arab elite had ignored them.
In response, Bashir massively expanded the Janjaweed to spearhead his counter-insurgency efforts. They quickly won notoriety for burning, looting, raping and killing.
Hemedti’s unit was among them, with a report by African Union peacekeepers saying it attacked and destroyed the village of Adwa in November 2004, killing 126 people, including 36 children.
A US investigation determined that the Janjaweed were responsible for genocide.
The Darfur conflict was referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which brought charges against four men, including Bashir, who has denied carrying out genocide.
Hemedti was one of the many Janjaweed commanders deemed too junior to be in the prosecutor’s sights at that time.
Just one, the Janjaweed “colonel of colonels”, Ali Abdel Rahman Kushayb, was brought to court.
Last month, he was found guilty on 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he will be sentenced on 19 November.
In the years following the height of the violence in 2004, Hemedti played his cards skillfully, rising to become head of a powerful paramilitary force, a corporate empire, and a political machine.
Support from Wagner
It is a story of opportunism and entrepreneurship. He briefly mutinied, demanding back pay for his soldiers, promotions, and a political position for his brother. Bashir gave him most of what he wanted, and Hemedti rejoined the fold.
Later, when other Janjaweed units mutinied, Hemedti led the government forces that defeated them, in the process taking control of Darfur’s largest artisanal gold mine at Jebel Amir.
Rapidly, Hemedti’s family company, Al-Gunaid, became Sudan’s most significant gold exporter.
In 2013, Hemedti asked—and got—formal status as head of a new paramilitary group, the RSF, reporting directly to Bashir.
The Janjaweed were folded into the RSF, receiving new uniforms, vehicles, and weapons—and also officers from the regular army, brought in to help with the upgrade.
The RSF scored a significant victory against the Darfur rebels, did less well in fighting an insurgency in the Nuba Mountains adjacent to South Sudan, and took a subcontract to police the border with Libya.
Ostensibly curbing illicit migration from Africa over the desert to the Mediterranean, Hemedti’s commanders also excelled in extortion and, reportedly, people-trafficking.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) called on the Sudanese army to send troops to fight against the Houthis in Yemen.
The contingent was commanded by a general who had fought in Darfur, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now the head of the army at war with the RSF.
Hemedti saw a chance and negotiated a separate, private deal with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to provide RSF mercenaries.
The Abu Dhabi connection proved most consequential. It was the beginning of a close relationship with the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed.
Young Sudanese men - and increasingly from neighbouring countries too - trekked to the RSF recruiting centres for cash payments of up to $6,000 (£4,500) on signing up.
Hemedti struck a partnership with Russia’s Wagner Group, receiving training in return for commercial dealings, including in gold.
He visited Moscow to formalise the deal, and was there on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. After the war in Sudan broke out, he denied that the RSF was receiving support from Wagner.
Although the RSF’s central combat units were increasingly professionalised, it also encompassed a coalition of irregular old-style ethnic militia.
As the regime faced mounting widespread protests, Bashir ordered Hemedti’s units to the capital, Khartoum.
Punning on his name, the president dubbed him himayti, “my protector”, seeing the RSF as a counterweight to potential coup makers in the regular army and national security.
It was a miscalculation. In April 2019, a vibrant camp of civic protesters surrounded the military headquarters demanding democracy.
The RSF has acquired modern weapons, including sophisticated drones, that it has used to strike Burhan’s de facto capital, Port Sudan, and which played a crucial role in the assault on el-Fasher.
*Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
BBCMohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, has emerged as a dominant figure on Sudan’s political stage, with his paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) now controlling half of the country.
The RSF scored a notable victory recently when it overran the city of el-Fasher, the last garrison held by the Sudanese army and its local allies in the western region of Darfur.
El-Fasher residents are suffering from famine following the RSF’s 18-month siege of the city, a UN-accredited group of food security experts confirmed on Monday.
Feared and loathed by his adversaries, his followers admire Hemedti for his tenacity, ruthlessness, and his promise to tear down a discredited state.
Hemedti has humble origins. His family is from the Mahariya section of the camel-herding, Arabic-speaking Rizeigat community that spans Chad and Darfur.
He was born in 1974 or 1975—like many from a rural background, his date and place of birth were not registered.
Led by his uncle Juma Dagalo, his clan moved into Darfur in the 1970s and 80s, fleeing war and seeking greener pastures and were allowed to settle.
After dropping out of school in his early teens, Hemedti earned money trading camels across the desert to Libya and Egypt.
At the time, Darfur was Sudan’s Wild West— poor, lawless, and neglected by the government of then-President Omar al-Bashir.
Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed - including a force commanded by Juma Dagalo - were attacking the villages of the indigenous Fur ethnic group.
This cycle of violence led to a full-scale rebellion in 2003, in which Fur fighters were joined by Masalit, Zaghawa and other groups, saying the country’s Arab elite had ignored them.
In response, Bashir massively expanded the Janjaweed to spearhead his counter-insurgency efforts. They quickly won notoriety for burning, looting, raping and killing.
Hemedti’s unit was among them, with a report by African Union peacekeepers saying it attacked and destroyed the village of Adwa in November 2004, killing 126 people, including 36 children.
A US investigation determined that the Janjaweed were responsible for genocide.
The Darfur conflict was referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which brought charges against four men, including Bashir, who has denied carrying out genocide.
Hemedti was one of the many Janjaweed commanders deemed too junior to be in the prosecutor’s sights at that time.
Just one, the Janjaweed “colonel of colonels”, Ali Abdel Rahman Kushayb, was brought to court.
Last month, he was found guilty on 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and he will be sentenced on 19 November.
In the years following the height of the violence in 2004, Hemedti played his cards skillfully, rising to become head of a powerful paramilitary force, a corporate empire, and a political machine.
Support from Wagner
It is a story of opportunism and entrepreneurship. He briefly mutinied, demanding back pay for his soldiers, promotions, and a political position for his brother. Bashir gave him most of what he wanted, and Hemedti rejoined the fold.
Later, when other Janjaweed units mutinied, Hemedti led the government forces that defeated them, in the process taking control of Darfur’s largest artisanal gold mine at Jebel Amir.
Rapidly, Hemedti’s family company, Al-Gunaid, became Sudan’s most significant gold exporter.
In 2013, Hemedti asked—and got—formal status as head of a new paramilitary group, the RSF, reporting directly to Bashir.
The Janjaweed were folded into the RSF, receiving new uniforms, vehicles, and weapons—and also officers from the regular army, brought in to help with the upgrade.
The RSF scored a significant victory against the Darfur rebels, did less well in fighting an insurgency in the Nuba Mountains adjacent to South Sudan, and took a subcontract to police the border with Libya.
Ostensibly curbing illicit migration from Africa over the desert to the Mediterranean, Hemedti’s commanders also excelled in extortion and, reportedly, people-trafficking.
In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) called on the Sudanese army to send troops to fight against the Houthis in Yemen.
The contingent was commanded by a general who had fought in Darfur, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now the head of the army at war with the RSF.
Hemedti saw a chance and negotiated a separate, private deal with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to provide RSF mercenaries.
The Abu Dhabi connection proved most consequential. It was the beginning of a close relationship with the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed.
Young Sudanese men - and increasingly from neighbouring countries too - trekked to the RSF recruiting centres for cash payments of up to $6,000 (£4,500) on signing up.
Hemedti struck a partnership with Russia’s Wagner Group, receiving training in return for commercial dealings, including in gold.
He visited Moscow to formalise the deal, and was there on the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. After the war in Sudan broke out, he denied that the RSF was receiving support from Wagner.
Although the RSF’s central combat units were increasingly professionalised, it also encompassed a coalition of irregular old-style ethnic militia.
As the regime faced mounting widespread protests, Bashir ordered Hemedti’s units to the capital, Khartoum.
Punning on his name, the president dubbed him himayti, “my protector”, seeing the RSF as a counterweight to potential coup makers in the regular army and national security.
It was a miscalculation. In April 2019, a vibrant camp of civic protesters surrounded the military headquarters demanding democracy.
The RSF has acquired modern weapons, including sophisticated drones, that it has used to strike Burhan’s de facto capital, Port Sudan, and which played a crucial role in the assault on el-Fasher.
*Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
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