Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, is one of the men who hold the fate of Sudan, leading a paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), that currently controls just under half of Sudanese territory. Born into an Arab tribe from the territory between Chad and Darfur, the western part of Sudan, Hemedti went from being a camel trader to a militant in the ranks of the tribal-Arab militia “Janjaweed”, transformed into the RSF in 2013, of which he soon became leader, gaining political and economic support, and thus legitimacy, from Al-Bashir, then dictator of Sudan. Under the aegis of Al-Bashir, Dagalo became one of the wealthiest men of the country, gaining control of the most lucrative gold mines in the Sudanese territory. Despite the close ties between Hemedti and the regime, in 2019 he and Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led the coup that provoked the fall of Al-Bashir’s almost thirty-years dictatorship. He then became deputy head of the Transitional Military Council (which was later transformed into the Sovereignty Council), an institution composed of both military and civilian members that was supposed to guide the country towards a democratic government. Right after the coup, the leader of the RSF declared himself a strong supporter of the Sudanese democratic project, but at the same time he ordered atrocious massacres against civilian protesters, especially in the capital, Khartoum. In 2021, after the failure of collaboration between the military and civilians, Hemedti gained the role of de facto vice-president, on an equal footing with Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, with enormous power over the country’s finances and the mandate to represent his country abroad, forging political and economic alliances.
Over time, the importance of Hemedti’s personality and origins for his image became evident: he identifies himself as the defender of the marginalized part of the Sudanese population against the political and military elite (the Arab clans called “Jelleba”) who rule Sudan since its independence in 1956, thus representing the first non-establishment leader in the country in a century. This is one of the reasons why this very elite, and part of the population, has strongly belittled the RSF’s leader, pointing out his lack of a traditional military training and his accent, far from the literary Arabic that is distinctive of the ruling class. Even though this has had a significant impact on Dagalo, leading him to engage in a media campaign in 2019 to boost his public image, his distance from the political tradition played a fundamental role in shaping his narrative, allowing him to highlight his tribal origins and nomadic Arabic identity, features that earned him the name “Son of the Desert”.
In 2023, the fragile power balance in Sudan was again compromised by the fracture between the RSF and SAF leaders, both willing to maintain their power and not to ratify any agreement on a division of power between them, particularly in the military field, let alone for Sudan’s democratic transition. Since then, the bloodiest conflict of our century has been tearing Sudan apart at the expense of civilians, who have been caught up in what the UN has called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”. Even though it isn’t clear which party to the conflict is responsible for its outbreak, for Hemedti this civil war is a means to strengthen his personal power through what he knows best: fighting. Since the beginning of the war, Dagalo has engaged in relentless efforts to legitimize the RSF within the international community, meeting the most important African and European leaders, presenting himself as the only one able to restore order in Sudan, leading the country towards a civilian government and protecting it at the same time from religious radicalism. Furthermore, it is evident that Dagalo is exploiting the civil war as a valuable resource for achieving personal gains: on the domestic front, even if his official narrative presents the war as a fight for Sudan’s self-determination against its own elite, he is pragmatically using it as leverage to pursue his own commercial interests. On the external front instead, he is acquiring more and more geopolitical power, forging alliances and collaborations with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Russia, with the aim of securing his position by obtaining international support.
Today, with the civil war still raging across the country, its consequences for Hemedti’s political and economic power remain uncertain, but what is sure is the importance of his influence not only for the conflict itself, from both a humanitarian and a political point of view, but also for Sudan’s future geopolitical posture, which will depend heavily on the outcome of this war.