This article was translated from Arabic.
“We announce our joining and pledging of allegiance to the Rapid Support Forces… in support of the revolution and in support of the rights of the marginalized.”
With those words in August 2023, Abu Aqla Keikal, a renowned Sudanese militia leader, declared an end to his group’s support for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and announced his allegiance to the other side of the war, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Keikal had served as an officer in the army before retiring with the rank of major during former leader Omar al-Bashir’s rule. He suddenly re-emerged after the October 2021 military coup as a major general leading the Sudan Shield Forces (SSF), a militia supported by tribes in central Sudan that grew to become a powerful player in the war that has been raging since April 15, 2023.
Keikal hails from an influential family from central Sudan, and his defection in August 2023 bolstered the RSF and enabled it to seize Gezira State in December 2023, some 180 kilometers south of the capital, with little resistance from the army. Once under its control, the RSF wreaked havoc in Gezira, killing and terrorizing its residents, as the group had done in all other areas it conquered during the war.
Less than a year later, in October 2024, Keikal switched allegiances once again, this time rejoining SAF. His return was met with enthusiastic celebration. Two months later, the army, helped by Keikal’s forces, declared victory and regained control of Gezira State. Not much time passed before reports emerged of a new wave of violations, this time committed by SAF against civilians.
In both cases, civilians paid the price
Keikal, now a celebrated general in the army, retained the same unchecked authority he enjoyed under RSF, overseeing war crimes as his soldiers sought vengeance against alleged collaborators in Gezira State.
Why did he defect, and why did he return? There are no clear answers. Observers reckoned his loyalty shifts toward whichever side appears to have the upper hand during the course of the war.
In both cases, civilians paid the price. The future of millions of Sudanese remains trapped between the brutality of SAF and RSF and other militias of varying allegiances, amid international indifference and a staggering failure on the part of Sudanese political and civil powers to deal with the conflict beyond the binary of an army versus a militia.
Countless atrocities
Military analysts viewed the RSF’s attack on Gezira State in December 2023 as a diversionary tactic to relieve pressure on other fronts, or perhaps to strengthen their negotiating position. Gezira’s terrain is open and flat, exposing RSF’s ground troops to SAF’s airstrikes. Yet, the army’s sudden withdrawal on the morning of December 19 defied these analyses, handing Wad Madani, the state capital, to the RSF on a silver platter without resistance.
The SSF, led by Keikal, helped the RSF seize Gezira. Formed in October 2021 by the Sudanese army along tribal lines, it drew fighters from clans in central and northern Sudan. Its creation echoed that of the RSF, itself formed by former President Omar al-Bashir who relied on fighters from Arab tribes in western Sudan to combat rebels in Darfur some two decades ago.
Most of SSF’s leaders are retired Sudanese army officers affiliated with the Islamic Movement. Estimates of its size vary, with some reports citing 35,000 fighters and others 75,000. The army had sought to create balance through this militia, both against the RSF and other armed groups that gained strength after Bashir’s fall.
The RSF along with the SSF committed countless atrocities in Gezira, despite repeated promises not to harm civilians. Over 500,000 people, half of whom had already fled from Khartoum, were displaced again. Torture, killings of civilians, humiliation, looting, and systematic destruction ensued, with RSF fighters proudly filming and sharing their crimes on social media.
The killing of over 100 civilians in the June 5, 2024, attack on Wad al-Nura village, with the use of heavy weaponry, drew special attention to RSF’s crimes, and exposed its true intent to inflict maximum harm on civilians and displace them from their land.
Civilians pay the price, again
The RSF launched a retaliatory campaign in October 2024 right after Keikal’s defection. It attacked Gezira’s villages, conducted indiscriminate shelling, committed sexual violence against women and girls, looted and burned markets, homes, and farms, and ethnically targeted the Shukriya tribe, from which Keikal hails. Hundreds of thousands of civilians fled into uncertainty.
And just as they did in Wad al-Nura under Keikal’s command, the RSF’s retaliatory campaign included massacres in the villages of Azraq and Al-Sariha in eastern Gezira, where around 100 people were killed. And again, RSF fighters posted videos boasting about their crimes, including clips of dozens of civilians arbitrarily detained in mosques.
The violence spread across most towns and villages in Gezira. In Tambul, RSF fighters killed at least 300 people and gang-raped dozens of women and girls, including an 8-year-old girl who was raped to death in front of her parents. According to a report by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), women in Al-Sariha village committed suicide due to rape or in fear of it. Around 1,000 people were killed between October 22 and 28, 2024, across 50 villages in Gezira and Sennar states.
And a third time…
In a role reversal, the RSF withdrew from Wad Madani, the state’s capital, and SAF announced its recapture on January 11, 2025, over a year after losing it.
The celebrations that swept Wad Madani and other cities were less about SAF’s victory and more about being freed from the RSF’s oppression. But the joy was short-lived. Instead of expanding operations to liberate remaining RSF-held areas in the state, the army and its allies swiftly launched an ethnically-driven retaliatory campaign against alleged RSF collaborators.
The celebrations that swept Wad Madani and other cities were less about SAF’s victory and more about being freed from the RSF’s oppression. But the joy was short-lived
The al-Bara’ Ibn Malik Brigade, the military wing of the Islamic Movement, is another influential militia allied to SAF. Both the SSF and the brigade targeted and killed individuals they alleged were “RSF collaborators.” In reality, these militias targeted revolutionary forces and civilian activists who were instrumental in toppling Bashir and his Islamist regime in April 2019, making this a vengeful campaign to neutralize civilians who in their view pose a greater threat to the army’s power than any armed militia, as the 2018 revolution showed.
Targeting “Cambo” residents and blaming the victims
The word “Cambo,” derived from the English word “camp,” refers to some 300 villages inhabited by workers around the Gezira Scheme, a vast irrigation project established in the 1920s. These workers—mainly hailing from western and southern Sudan—are of African descent, and are generally marginalized and treated as second class citizens by some Sudanese from northern and central regions who come from Arab tribes.
It is this marginalization that has led to the neglect of the Cambos and their residents, despite being the backbone of the project for generations: they do not own land or possess basic rights, and their communities lack essential services like healthcare and education.
In January 2025, SAF and its allies ethnically targeted several villages, notably “Cambo Tiba” and “Cambo Khamsa,” killing at least 120 people. Forces allied to SAF shamelessly publicized the atrocities—mass slaughter, burnings, drownings in the Nile, and executions—just as the RSF had done. Thousands fled for their lives.
Protecting civilians, especially vulnerable groups like women and children, during armed conflict is a cornerstone of international humanitarian law that both the SAF and RSF have failed to comply with, killing civilians either directly using firepower, or indirectly through starvation.
Victims, no matter who they were, have been blamed for the crimes they endured. For instance, as a reaction to the RSF’s atrocities in Gezira, the RSF-aligned civilian group Civil Democratic Forces Coordination (Taqaddum), led by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, attempted to strip civilians of international legal protections, first by accusing them of bearing arms, then by claiming Keikal’s defection to the army “provoked” the RSF. More recently, some civilian groups justified the SAF’s crimes by spreading the false narrative that those civilian victims were RSF collaborators.
Buying time, burying the truth
AS RSF fighters did, SAF soldiers and their allies proudly published their atrocities online, which forced Sudan’s de facto government, headed by SAF leader Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, to form a committee to investigate the January 9, 2025 events in Cambo Tiba, where mass killings, abduction of women, and arson reportedly happened. But the committee’s flaws were evident from its inception: its mandate was limited to just Cambo Tiba, ignoring other villages and cities where similar atrocities were reported. It was given just one week to carry out its investigation, and its report has not been released yet.
In Sudan, such committees aim to stall, obscure truth, and placate the public. A vivid example is the June 3 massacre investigation committee, which failed to produce any real outcomes until it was suspended after the October 2021 military coup.
Apart from such committees, existing legal mechanisms can help bring about justice, if enforced. These include the 1991 Penal Code and the 2007 Armed Forces Act which prohibit the inhumane treatment of civilians and prisoners. In fact, the 2007 Armed Forces Act applies to all military personnel of all affiliations, which means that it could be used to prosecute RSF soldiers as well.
Enforcing local laws is critical, as other international mechanisms, for the time being, cannot be used to investigate SAF’s and the RSF’s grave crimes committed nationwide. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction, per UN Security Council Resolution 1593 (of March 31, 2005), is restricted to Darfur, excluding Gezira and the rest of Sudan. Expanding the ICC’s mandate to all Sudan in the United Nations’ Security Council is unlikely to pass due to conflicting interests of member countries. Russia, which supports both belligerents, vetoed a UNSC resolution to protect civilians in August 2024, while the United States sanctioned the ICC in February 2025 over Israel. Both countries are permanent members of the UNSC and they would be likely to veto such a move.
Blocking the path to justice
SAF’s celebration of Keikal’s return and honoring him as a national hero despite his crimes is the latest manifestation of an abhorrent tradition in Sudan’s modern history of rewarding armed actors at the expense of powerless civilians. Keikal’s case mirrors that of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), the RSF commander the army promoted to the highest ranks despite, or perhaps because of, his crimes before he turned against it.
Such practice underscores the absolute necessity of exercising accountability under a civilian government. Justice is impossible under military regimes that seize power by force and fuel wars to bolster their rule, as former President Omar al-Bashir did, and as the SAF and RSF leaders are currently doing.
Justice is impossible under military regimes that seize power by force and fuel wars to bolster their rule, as former President Omar al-Bashir did, and as the SAF and RSF leaders are currently doing
Dialogue initiatives led by armed factions, with civilians invited only when convenient, are destined to fail. The post-2018 revolution partnership imposed by the military on civilians collapsed, as did the Juba Peace Agreement (which was negotiated primarily between the military and armed groups, and sidelined civilians), and the November 2021 deal brokered under international pressure. Now is the time to center civil forces, namely the Resistance Committees and Emergency Rooms, who are genuinely committed to ending the war in any future dialogue. They are the de facto authority managing civilian affairs while SAF and RSF wage war over their heads.
Mohaned Elnour is a Nonresident Fellow at TIMEP working on religious minorities and freedoms in Sudan.