The Sudanese army accused paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Wednesday of “abducting and murdering” the Governor of West Darfur State, Khamis Abdallah Abakar, almost two months after a power struggle between two rival generals plunged the country into a bloody war.
The assassination of Khamis Abdallah Abakar means that the Rapid Support Forces have added a “new line to their list of barbaric crimes committed against the entire Sudanese people”, the army declared on Facebook, calling the facts a “brutal act”.
Since April 15, the war between General Abdelfattah al-Burhane’s army and General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left more than 1,800 people dead, according to the NGO ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), and more than 1.5 million displaced, according to the UN.
Generals al-Burhane and Daglo had joined forces in the 2021 putsch to oust the civilians with whom they had shared power since the fall of Bachir in 2019. But differences then arose and, in the absence of agreement on the integration of the RSF into the army, degenerated into war.