A genocidal militia’s quest for legitimacy

A year ago the Rapid Support Forces (rsf) seemed to be on a roll. The Sudanese paramilitary group, which had been battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (saf), Sudan’s regular army, since April 2023, had taken over much of Khartoum, the capital. Almost all of Darfur, its ethnic base in the far west, was under its control. And equipped with weapons reportedly supplied by the United Arab Emirates (uae), its most powerful foreign ally (which denies sending them), it was even on the cusp of capturing the army’s traditional heartlands in the south-east. Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti), the group’s leader and Sudan’s most feared warlord, prepared to embark on a tour of African capitals, where he would be welcomed like a president-in-waiting.