The Sudanese civil war has taken a new turn as top commanders defect from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan earlier this year welcomed Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, also known as Al-Nour al-Qubba, a former senior RSF commander, into SAF ranks — one of the most high-profile defections to date.

While SAF controls Khartoum, Port Sudan, and large parts of the east and center, the RSF holds vast western areas, particularly Darfur and the city of El Fasher. Weeks later, another senior RSF commander, Ali Rizq Allah (Al-Savannah), also defected. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reviewed videos allegedly showing these defectors during the siege of El Fasher, where the NGO documented war crimes by the RSF during the city's capture in October 2025.

Since the war began in 2023, al-Burhan has sought to recruit RSF defectors, offering a general amnesty for those who lay down arms and integrate into the military. However, HRW researcher Mohamed Osman warned against impunity: "Those responsible for serious international crimes and human rights violations do not get a free pass if they switch sides. Sudanese people who have experienced horrific abuses under any commander's watch deserve justice."

According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the defections may indicate growing tensions within the RSF and "cracks in the RSF's core alliances," with "local loyalties superseding central command, sparking violent intra-coalition competition over remaining war spoils."

The defections come amid external support for both sides. The RSF is believed to be backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, Libya, Chad, and Kenya, while the SAF — also accused of war crimes — is supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Eritrea. Iran is suspected of providing military aid to the SAF.

Last year, US intelligence sources told The Wall Street Journal that the UAE allegedly supplied the RSF with "advanced Chinese-made drones along with small arms, heavy machine guns, vehicles, artillery, mortars, and ammunition." Cameron Hudson, a former chief of staff to several US special envoys for Sudan, claimed: "The only thing that is keeping them [the RSF] in this war is the overwhelming amount of military support that they're receiving from the UAE. The war would be over if not for the UAE."

In 2025, Amnesty International also found evidence suggesting the UAE "almost certainly" re-exported Chinese-made weapons to the RSF. The UAE rejects the accusations as "baseless." In late May, HRW published a report titled "From Bogota to El Fasher: The UAE's Role in the Deployment of Colombian Fighters and Other Backing to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan." The 83-page document details how hundreds of Colombian mercenaries have been recruited to fight alongside the RSF since 2024, allegedly via the Abu Dhabi-based Global Security Services Group (GSSG).

HRW's Joey Shea told Democracy Now: "Thankfully for us, Colombian contractors are not very hygienic with their social media presence so we were able to get a lot of information from their own TikTok accounts and other social media that they posted publicly and geolocate them in these sensitive UAE military sites before they were then deployed to Sudan." The report also noted that former Colombian soldiers were recruited due to their combat experience and training with US weapons systems.

Shea criticized international inaction: "The New York Times, UN experts, human rights organizations like ours have repeatedly reported on UAE military support to the RSF. Yet the international community has remained silent. To this day not a single EU member state, the EU, the US, the UK has publicly called out the UAE's role in helping to fund support and militarily support the Rapid Support Forces."

In April, the Conflict Insights Group published a report based on cell phone tracking of Colombian fighters, arguing that the UAE enabled the fall of El Fasher. The investigation led to a military training facility in Ghayathi, UAE, where the "Desert Wolves" brigade operated under retired Colombian Colonel Alvaro Quijano, sanctioned by the US and UK for fueling Sudan's war. The UAE denies these allegations as well.

Meanwhile, civilians continue to suffer. A UN fact-finding mission concluded that the siege of El Fasher bore the "hallmarks of genocide." The RSF is thought to have killed around 70,000 people in El Fasher alone. Aid organizations say Sudan faces the world's largest and fastest-growing displacement and humanitarian crisis, with the World Food Program reporting one of the largest hunger crises globally: around 12 million displaced and almost 20 million facing acute hunger.

Source: www.dw.com