Coup in Sudan: who is Hemedti, the camel seller turned Sudan’s richest and most violent paramilitary

Since being named head of Sudan’s largest paramilitary group two decades ago, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, was leading the way into the shadows to become the most powerful man in the country, in which he has now waged a rebellion.

Born in 1973 into a Riezigat tribe originally from Chad, the struggle for power took Hemedti from a simple uneducated camel trader to Sudan’s most dangerous paramilitary. the Rapid Support Forces (FAR), born out of the notorious Yanyaweed militias who led the massacres in Darfur between 2003 and 2008.

Under his orders, some 100,000 fighters have committed all kinds of crimes against humanity in the different conflicts in Sudan, while Hemedti also served to become a the richest person in the African country, forcibly taking control of most of the nation’s gold mines.

Hemedti’s career as a paramilitary leader began with the outbreak of ethnically colored warfare in Darfur, which left some 300,000 dead in just five years, according to the United Nations.

Then, he was chosen by the former Islamist dictator Omar al Bashir (1989-2019) as his man of confidence in the massacres in the west of the country, where, according to international human rights organizations, “genocide” and ” ethnic cleansing”. committed against the population of African origin who mainly engage in agriculture.

In 2004, Hemedti directly commanded one of the most doomed massacres of the Darfur conflict, when he ordered the cold-blooded murder of some 130 Adwa villagers, whom the Janjawid burned to the ground before raping hundreds of the village’s women. village and bury the men in mass graves.

A year after the Janjawid’s conversion to the Rapid Support Forces, between 2014 and 2015, Hemedti -former de facto leader of the FAR- was accused by Human Rights Watch and other NGOs of commit “murder, mass rape, torture” and cause the forced displacement of entire communities in North Darfur.

The conflict continued with the general in command, who also made use of the brute force to gain control of large reserves and gold minesone of Sudan’s largest natural resources and which accounts for nearly half of the country’s coffers.

The fortune he amassed through the exploitation and marketing of gold led him to become a the richest man in the countrywhile it has also done business by sending its fighters to participate as mercenaries in conflicts in the region, as in the case of Yemen or Libya.

Throughout his life, Hemedti has proven himself to be a unscrupulous soldiers, but also without loyalty.

In 2019 he participated in the overthrow of his guarantor, Omar al Bashir, during the so-called Sudanese revolution, a popular mobilization that will also end up brutally repressing the FAR front, also accused of having massacred more than a hundred demonstrators in a single day during a sit- in in June of that year.

The revolution started a process of transition in Sudan and established a civilian government to which Hemedti swore allegiance. However, two years later, in 2021, the paramilitaries plotted a coup together with the army chief, Abdelfatah al Burhan, and would become deputy presidents of the Sovereign Council, the country’s executive body.

The coup was largely rejected, while the FAR continued to crack down on protesters. But international pressure against an isolated country full of sanctions ended up turning the military against an anvil, thus initiating a series of talks to restore civilian government.

The political process has started well, especially with the signing of a framework agreement on December 5, 2022 to remove the military from power. However, the signing of the final pact has been postponed up to two times due to disagreements on the process of integrating the FAR into the Army.

And is that a unification of all military groups in Sudan it would leave Hemedti with no wiggle room to seize poweras well as continuing his business, and would put him even more in the crosshairs to be held accountable for all the calamities he committed during his 50-year life.