RSF to compensate for deadly Sudan-Libya border clash

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has handed over five of its vehicles following the death of 17 Border Guards members near the Sudanese-Libyan border last week. The handover is a first step of an agreement between the involved parties.

A neutral committee managed to make the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Revolutionary Awakening Council (RAC) led by Sheikh Musa Hilal agree on the compensation for the death of the 17 paramilitary Border Guards members.

On 21 September they clashed with the RSF on the Sudanese-Egyptian-Libyan border, resulting in the killing of “seventeen human traffickers and two RSF troops” as Lt. Col. Hassan Abdallah, RSF Field Commander told the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA). It was “the largest armed gang operating in human trafficking and illegal immigration”, Abdallah said.

Meanwhile Haroun Medeikhheer of the RAC called for the formation of a neutral and independent investigation committee to investigate the killing of its forces: “…considering that the dead were not smugglers as the government claimed, and what the motives were behind their deaths”.

Medeikheer told Radio Dabanga in an interview yesterday that the new agreement reached by the neutral committee includes terms such as the RSF to hand over a number of vehicles, military equipment, and detainees. Last week the RSF field commander said that “seven gang leaders” were detained.

“The handing over of the vehicles that took place yesterday is a first positive step in the right direction, indicating that the parties have the intention to address the conflict before it escalates,” Medeikheer said.

Following the clash the RSF has withdrawn all of its forces at the Jebel Amer mine in North Darfur and in other areas, and replaced them with other forces belonging to Mahameed, according to Medeikheer, which “led to a halt of the attack”. The Mahameed clan is a sub-category of the greater Rizeigat tribe in Sudan.