Conflict between the SAF and RSF erupted on April 15, 2023. While fighting has been chiefly concentrated in the country's capital, Khartoum, the conflict has impacted other regions of the country. In Darfur, mass killings and displacement have led to reports of ethnic cleansing.
NAIROBI — Since civil war erupted in Sudan last spring, paramilitary fighters battling the country’s army have carried out a campaign of abductions, kidnapping civilians for ransom or pressing them into forced servitude, according to 10 victims who have since been released and other witnesses.
Both appear to have lost confidence in the political process, shifting instead to the logic of war and violence. At its foundation, the fighting is a struggle over power in the security sector and the exercise of power in the state.
However,Elements within the Rapid Support Forces, which have captured most of the capital, Khartoum, and swept across most of the western region of Darfur, have made these abductions a lucrative source of revenue, victims, other witnesses and activists said.
