{"id":37738,"date":"2026-06-22T14:51:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=37738"},"modified":"2026-06-22T14:51:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T12:51:51","slug":"sudans-army-takes-in-darfur-paramilitary-defectors-stirring-anger","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sudans-army-takes-in-darfur-paramilitary-defectors-stirring-anger\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan&#8217;s army takes in Darfur paramilitary defectors, stirring anger"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Last month, Ali Rizkallah, a commander in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, was welcomed to Sudan\u2019s capital Khartoum and given a uniform \u200band a rank in the armed forces he had spent about three years fighting.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The army affiliated government hailed his defection, the latest in a series of high-level \u200cswitches that have been reshaping Sudan&#8217;s alliances and boosting the military in one of the deadliest conflicts of the century.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">But many others have balked at the sight of Rizkallah and other former RSF figures moving freely and holding press conferences, fearing that the defectors will evade justice for alleged crimes committed under their command.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;These RSF soldiers, even if they seek God\u2019s forgiveness, I can\u2019t forgive them \u200bbecause of what I saw face to face,&#8221; Halima Ismail, a woman in western Darfur, told <em>Reuters.<\/em><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">She described Rizkallah&#8217;s forces firing in the air during an attack \u200bon a village where she was sheltering in 2024.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Sudan\u2019s civil war is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and spread \u2060famine and disease since the RSF and army fell out and began fighting in April 2023.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20977,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-37738","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Rapid Support Forces","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37739,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/37738\/revisions\/37739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=37738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}