The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have completed the first phase of processing and integrating former members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who defected to the national army, according to a military statement.
The development follows a series of defections from the RSF in Darfur and Kordofan in recent months. The latest involved more than 300 RSF fighters who surrendered to army units in Sudan’s Northern State on Wednesday.
The army said the first phase of the regularisation process covered personnel who abandoned the RSF in response to amnesty offers repeatedly issued by Sudan’s military chief and head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, since the conflict began in April 2023.
The integration exercise was supervised by Major General El-Waleed Abdel Gadir Ajabna, head of the army’s administration branch, alongside senior field commanders. The process included administrative regularisation in line with military regulations, assignment to operational units and comprehensive security and intelligence checks.
Ajabna commended the former RSF fighters for joining the national armed forces after undergoing the required security clearances. Brigadier General Isaac Saad Osman, chairman of the committee responsible for regularising the status of former RSF personnel, also outlined the integration procedures and praised the defectors for choosing to join the army.
Meanwhile, the RSF has been accused of carrying out attacks on villages in North Kordofan State that killed at least six civilians and displaced hundreds of residents to the state capital, El Obeid.
Security sources said RSF fighters attacked the villages of Um Dareisa and Al-Shaqla, about 40 kilometres southwest of El Obeid, on Wednesday afternoon. Several residents were reportedly wounded, while others were said to be missing.
A North Kordofan government official said more than 1,000 people from 215 families had arrived in El Obeid by Thursday, many of them walking for several kilometres. The official said women, children and elderly people were among the displaced and arrived in critical condition.
The official further accused RSF fighters of committing abuses in the area, including killings, physical assaults, sexual violence and forced displacement, allegedly to facilitate the seizure of supplies at gunpoint. The RSF had not immediately responded to the allegations.
The latest violence followed an earlier attack on Um Arda, about 20 kilometres southwest of El Obeid, where 18 people were reportedly killed, 17 wounded and more than 300 families displaced.
The influx of displaced people has further strained eight overcrowded camps in El Obeid, which provide shelter and emergency food assistance to more than 100,000 people.
The North Kordofan Humanitarian Aid Commission estimates that about 1.3 million displaced people are currently living across camps and residential areas in El Obeid.
