The Sudanese capital Khartoum has just endured a week of terror as missiles, air strikes, and gunfire rained on it as army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan battled his deputy Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo alias Hemedti, who leads the powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a private paramilitary group. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands wounded.
The RSF is like no paramilitary or militia Africa has seen before. In late 2019, as Sudan continued to reel from the economic and political crises that had led to the ouster of strongman Omar al-Bashir, the RSF had more hard cash than the state. Hemedti reportedly lent the Sudan Central Bank over $1 billion to help stabilise the tanking Sudanese Pound.
