The RSF was reported to conduct intensive recruitment campaigns in areas under its control, mobilising fighters along tribal lines, such as the Misseriya, the Ta’aysha and the Rizeigat tribes.316 In October 2024, the leader of the RSF, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, ‘Hemedti’, called for a ‘general mobilisation’.317 In January 2026, The Horn Review noted that the RSF has used Faza’a (a pre-Islamic Sudanese tradition allowing tribes to call on their members and allies for support against attacks by other tribes)318 to recruit fighters in South Sudan, primarily in Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Western Equatoria states.319 In previous reports, it was noted that the RSF also recruited along tribal lines in Chad and Niger members of Baggara Arab groups.320 The RSF reportedly received support from Colombian mercenaries recruited through private companies registered in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and operating under the ‘Desert Wolves’ (Lobos del Desierto) battalion.321
RSF recruitment along tribal lines and using customary administrations appears to have elements of coercion.322According to tribal leaders, ‘going to fight is a tribal duty that cannot be avoided’.323 In April 2025, the RSF reportedly threatened tribal leaders in South Darfur with arrests and expulsion from the RSF-controlled areas if they resisted the mobilisation, detaining the sheikh of Borno ‘for refusing the mobilisation drive’.324 Similar instances of detention of tribal leaders by the RSF have been reported.325 In 2024, ‘intimidation, torture, summary execution and the withholding of food and medical aid’ was used to recruit men and boys into RSF ranks.326
Some Colombian mercenaries were deployed in Sudan after recruitment under deceiving circumstances,327 with one source claiming ‘they had been sent to Sudan against their will’.328 In November 2024, Colombian media outlet La Silla Vacía reported testimonies from Colombians in Sudan who claimed they were held captive and described their situation as a form of trafficking in human beings, alleging they had been recruited under false pretence elsewhere; some of those interviewed stated they were not allowed to leave the army and feared reprisals for sharing information.329 However, in March 2025, La Silla Vacía interviewed a Colombian mercenary who had been deployed in Sudan and was able to return to Colombia upon requesting it. He also estimated that around 80 Colombian mercenaries returned to Colombia from Sudan.330
For information on child soldiers, see section 2.7.2. Child soldiers.
- 316
Dabanga, Sudan’ RSF ‘stoke ethnic tensions with tribal recruitment’, 11 November 2024, url; Atar Network, Militarising tribes: inside Sudan’s system of war mobilization, 6 October 2025, url
- 317
Dabanga, Sudan’ RSF ‘stoke ethnic tensions with tribal recruitment’, 11 November 2024, url, Sudan Tribune, RSF forcibly recruits from Darfur camp amid mounting losses, 15 November 2024, url
- 318
ADF, In Sudan, RSF invokes tradition to force children onto battlefield, 8 October 2024, url
- 319
Horn Review (The), Transnational attrition: mercenary mobilization and the destabilization of the Sudan-South Sudan borderland, 11 January 2026, url
- 320
Yasr Zaidan, Ethno-mercenarism in Sudan’s RSF and the Sahelian Arab Blet in Africa, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 21 October 2025, url; Democracy in Africa, Illegal recruitment fuels RSF militia’s expansion, 5 July 2024, url
- 321
Horn Review (The), Transnational attrition: mercenary mobilization and the destabilization of the Sudan-South Sudan borderland, 11 January 2026, url; La Silla Vacía, ‘Lobos del Desierto’: Así operan los mercenarios colombianos en Sudán, 2 March 2025, url; CIG, Blood Money – How UAE support and foreign mercenaries enabled the fall of El Fasher, April 2026, url
- 322
Facts Center for Journalism, Atar Network, n.d., url; Index on Censorship, New magazine Atar fills information void in Sudan, 10 May 2024, url
- 323
Atar Network, Militarising tribes: inside Sudan’s system of war mobilization, 6 October 2025, url
- 324
Atar Network, Militarising tribes: inside Sudan’s system of war mobilization, 6 October 2025, url
- 325
Committee for Justice, Sudan: RSF arrest ‘Rufa’a’ tribe sheikh in ‘Dinder’ for refusing to cooperate, CFJ demands his release, 29 August 2024, url; Sudan Tribune, RSF detains tribal leader, 16 others in Sudan’s East Darfur, 22 January 2026, url
- 326
CNN, ‘Enlist or die’: fear, looming famine and a deadly ultimatum swell the ranks of Sudan’s paramilitary forces, 21 March 2024, url
- 327
Sudan Tribune, Colombian mercenaries, RSD deployment routes exposed in AFP investigation, 21 December 2025, url; Guardian (The), ‘War is a business’: the Colombian mercenaries training Sudan’s child fighters to ‘go and get killed’, 8 October 2025, url; La Silla Vacía, “Me quiero devolver”: hay más de 300 exmilitares colombianos en la guerra de Sudán, 26 November 2024, url; France24, From the Andes to Darfur: Colombians lured to Sudan’s killing fields, 21 December 2025, url, UN Security Council, Letter dated 5 September 2025 from the Permanent Representative of the Sudan to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2025/555*, 5 September 2025, url
- 328
ADF, Colombian mercenaries, hired for UAE security, face fire in Sudan, 7 January 2025, url
- 329
La Silla Vacía, “Me quiero devolver”: hay más de 300 exmilitares colombianos en la guerra de Sudán, 26 November 2024, url
- 330
La Silla Vacía, ‘Lobos del Desierto’: Así operan los mercenarios colombianos en Sudán, 2 March 2025, url