Sudan’s Dagalo urges RSF fighters to march on after setback

The commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fighting Sudan’s army has urged his men to march on as the war reaches a “do-or-die” juncture.

“Starting today, it’s to be or not to be for us,” Gen Mohamed Dagalo told his fighters in a brief address posted online on Monday, a day after the army said it had captured the key town of Bara and several nearby villages in the Kordofan region.

“Starting today, we march forward, march forward. We no longer retreat. Everyone must be ready. God willing, I will be with you on the front lines and, God willing, the game will change.”

Gen Dagalo did not directly mention the loss of Bara in North Kordofan, but his comments late on Monday appeared to be a rare admission of a major battlefield setback.

They followed an “emergency” meeting of his administration’s Defence and Security Council. A statement by the RSF-aligned government said the meeting was called to review “military and security developments at a time when the front lines are witnessing an escalation in fighting in some areas, including Kordofan”.

In his comments, Gen Dagalo praised the courage of his fighters, saying: “You have done everything you could.” But he also rebuked them for posting videos and images online of their location.

These are tantamount to “intelligence gifts” to the enemy, he said, without citing a specific incident.

“All of us must change our ways. Firstly, we must stop the photography. Only the designated person can do that,” he said. “You must abide by the law and the basics.”

The fall of Bara to the army on Sunday has added significance because it is only 50km from the large city of Al Obeid, parts of which have for months been besieged by the RSF.

Capturing Bara also gives the army access to the 350-kilometre motorway linking Kordofan to the capital, thus ensuring the security of supplies to the army garrison in Al Obeid and denying the RSF a route back to the capital, from which it was pushed out in 2024.

Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army chief and Sudan’s de facto ruler, visited North Kordofan on Monday, according to an official statement. Photos and video clips posted online by the military showed a jubilant Gen Al Burhan celebrating the latest battlefield victory with his troops in Bara and the surrounding region.

The RSF’s response to the loss of Bara came the following day, when drones hammered Al Obeid in what residents described as one of the most severe attacks on the city by the RSF since the war began in April 2023.

There was no word from the RSF or the army on Monday’s early morning drone attack, nor reports of any casualties or material damage. However, residents said suicide drones targeted the airport tower and the 5th Infantry Division, the army’s main force in Al Obeid.

The RSF is allied with a powerful rebel group in Kordofan that has fought successive Khartoum governments for decades. The Sudanese Armed Forces is allied with rebel groups and Islamist militias once loyal to the regime of Omar Al Bashir, who was removed in 2019 after 29 years in power.

While the RSF controls the western region of Darfur, an area about the size of France, and parts of Kordofan and the southern Blue Nile state, the army controls the capital as well as the northern, central and eastern parts of the country.

Kordofan, a central region neighbouring Darfur, has been the main theatre of operations since the army lost the entire Darfur region when the city of El Fasher fell into the hands of the RSF last October.

The latest battlefield gains made by the army in Kordofan follow similar inroads in the southern Blue Nile region. They underline the resolve of Gen Al Burhan to continue fighting the RSF, while resisting international pressure to enter negotiations to end the conflict.

The war between the armed forces and the RSF broke out when differences between Gen Al Burhan and Gen Dagalo boiled over into open hostilities that began in the capital but soon spread across most of the vast Afro-Arab nation.

There are varying estimates of the number of people killed since the war began in April 2023, with accounts of the death toll ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. The war has also displaced about 14 million people and created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Al Shafie Ahmed contributed to this report from Kampala, Uganda.