The funeral lasted a few minutes. In front of the already covered grave, in a cemetery in the Khartoum metropolitan area, the patriarchs in white turbans surround a haggard man, in a state of shock. They speak instead of this thin and silent individual, with sunken cheeks, who is held by the arm. Aboubakar Omar, 35, is the only survivor of his family. He has just buried his father. In three weeks, he also lost his mother and brother. Died of exhaustion as a result of the extreme conditions imposed by their forced displacement.
Aboubakar Omar’s family comes from Al-Hilaliya, in Jezira State, south of Khartoum. Since October, more than 340,000 inhabitants of this agricultural region, considered the breadbasket of Sudan, have been driven from their towns and villages by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a dissident paramilitary unit led by General Hemetti, entering war against the regular army in April 2023.
The general staff has made the reconquest of this key province a strategic priority. This Saturday, January 11, he finally has a significant victory. The government announced that it had “released” Wad Madani, the regional capital of Jezira, after a year of occupation by the RSF. Videos circulating on social media showed pro-government troops entering the city at midday. The news sparked scenes of jubilation in the streets of Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum, the capital.
Dust swirls
For a year, displaced people from Jezira have crowded into the streets, schools and buildings under construction in Gedaref, Kassala and Omdurman, towns that remain under the control of the Sudanese government. Three large camps have also sprung up in the desert at the gates of Chendi, a two-hour drive north of Khartoum, along the national highway. Between the square tents, swirls of dust form and dance on the hard volcanic earth.
The 30 members of the Alzain family sleep in the open air, under a straw awning installed in the suburb of Atbara, on a cousin’s land. 300 kilometers from their village, Al-Tahla. “When the RSF came for the first time, they just crossed, without stopping,” describes Rachid Souleymane Alzain. It was in December 2023: the paramilitaries under Hemetti’s orders then descended on Wad Madani, and seized the rich Jezira after a series of lightning raids which forced the army to retreat.
In Al-Tahla, the period of cohabitation with the RSF will last eight months. “We didn’t go out of the village too much, life was normal, but we were on our guard. We could hear gunshots in the distance, from time to time. says Abdallah Malick Alzain. The villagers cope as best they can with the presence of the paramilitaries. “At first, they only stole very expensive things, big cars for example, he continues. We used to make a living from growing sugar cane, but the sugar factory was destroyed, so we planted corn and beans. To feed ourselves, first, and then we sold the surplus at the Tamboul market. [la ville la plus proche].»
About-face of a warlord
The members of the Rapid Support Forces who regularly patrol Al-Tahla are in reality local militiamen, the men of Abu Aqlah Keikel, the leader of the Sudan Shield, a powerful Islamist armed group formed well before the war to support the Sudanese army. But Keikel is a volatile man: in 2023, he changed sides and put his troops at the service of Hemetti, becoming the de facto governor of Jezira. Before turning his jacket again, on October 20, 2024. The warlord defected from the RSF and surrendered to the regular army – who hailed him as a hero and immediately offered him amnesty –, pretexting the “misbehavior” paramilitaries against civilians.
This about-face will trigger merciless revenge operations against the civilian populations of the Jezira. “On October 23, the RSF who arrived in Al-Tahla were not Keikel’s men. They were very numerous, around 500 men in 70 to 80 vehicles, remembers Ousmane Mohamed Ibrahim Alzain. Before entering town, they had cut off the electricity and water.” Each man in the Alzain family lifts a piece of clothing, twists and turns to show the marks of whips and the traces of blows received that day. A rickety grandfather wants to show off his bruised back. “They shot at our feet, insulted us, they thought we belonged to the same tribe as Keikel, the Shukriya, and included us in their revenge, explains Ousmane Mohamed Ibrahim. No one resisted, we had no weapons.”
At 3 a.m., 3,000 residents of Al-Tahla set out into the night. “On foot, with nothing, without luggage. We walked east for three days, says Gassurallah Assaba Rassoul Alzain. As soon as we stopped, they harassed us, chasing us even further, like cattle.” Several residents died on the road, he says.
“Burned with a lighter, slashed with a razor”
Ismaïl (1), 27, witnessed a similar campaign of reprisals in Tamboul, one of the largest towns in Jezira, the day after Keikel’s defection. “They entered the city in a rage, they beat people, they looted, they insulted,” describes the young man, met in a café in the capital. Absorbed by his story, he does not touch the hibiscus tea he ordered. During the RSF attack in October, Ismaïl remained hidden in his house, secretly connected to the Internet using a Starlink device. “They entered the houses, they killed around ten people. They stole the solar panels. There was no water or electricity. They stole all the food from the market, he says. The message was explicit and very clear: leave.” During the third night, Ismail fled with his mother, his wife and some women from the neighborhood. “We walked three hours before finding a cart to rent to a village. But the RSF arrived just after us and chased us away again.”
Abdelatif (1) is 20 years old. He also comes from Al-Hilaliya, like Aboubakar Omar, the man from the cemetery. He smokes cigarette after cigarette, running his fingers over and over his growing mustache. Al-Hilaliya, 100,000 inhabitants, on the right bank of the Blue Nile, is located 25 kilometers from Tamboul. When the Rapid Support Forces seized his town in December 2023, the young volunteer militiaman, suspected of being a spy for the army, was taken prisoner. “They whipped me and held me in their camp for three days, without anything to eat or drink, he said. They burned me with a lighter, cut me with a razor.” Then Hemetti’s men released him. Abdelatif stayed in town and made himself small.
The “nightmare” started again on October 20. “That day, Keikel’s fighters had suddenly disappeared. The RSF came, they started by extorting people, remembers Abdelatif. The second day, there were even more of them, around 500 paramilitaries. They arrived with trucks and took all the livestock. The next day, they beat all the men they found in the houses. The next day, they took all the [pick-up] Hilux and motorcycles. Day after day, they pushed us to the limit.”
A ransom to leave the city
The men who tried to resist were shot. “I saw with my own eyes around fifteen corpses of civilians in the streets,” says Abdelatif. In two weeks, 644 people were killed, according to a list drawn up by the residents of Al-Hilaliya. Every day, collective funerals are organized. “We dug large holes, where we placed up to 40 or 50 bodies. After the prayer, we dispersed, we didn’t even say condolences.” At night, women and children took refuge in the great mosque of Tamboul. Men are sleeping all around. According to Abdelatif, the RSF are cynical enough to demand a ransom to let them leave the city: the amount is set at 7 million Sudanese pounds (or nearly 10,000 euros) for his family. They were “among the last” from, fifteen days after the first attack.
The campaign of forced displacement in the Jezira is reminiscent of the terrible methods of ethnic cleansing used by the RSF in Darfur last year. On Tuesday, January 7, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, described for the first time the crimes of the paramilitaries in Sudan as “genocide”, based on reports of the murder “systematic” of men and young boys, and accusing General Hemetti’s troops of “deliberately targeting women and girls of certain ethnic groups for rape.” Washington announced a series of sanctions targeting the head of the RSF, as well as front companies, based in the United Arab Emirates (Hemetti’s main sponsor), supplying the coffers of his organization.
Saturday January 11, the leader of the paramilitaries admitted having “lost” the town of Wad Madani and already promises to “reconquer” the capital of Jezira. In an audio message to his fighters and the Sudanese people, Hemetti says: “Today we lost a round, we did not lose the battle.”
(1) First names have been changed.
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