The leader of the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, embarked on a rare foreign trip last week as he presents himself as the next leader of Sudan.
Dagalo’s African tour, which took him to Uganda, Ethiopia and Djibouti, comes days after the RSF seized al-Jazeera state in east-central Sudan, dealing a major blow to the Sudanese army.
The months-long war between the RSF and the Sudanese army, headed by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has killed more than 12,000 people since April and displaced over 7 million others in what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Sudan has been embroiled in political chaos since the fall of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
