CNN: PMC Wagner supplies Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles

PMC Wagner supplies missiles to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that is fighting against the country’s acting military, CNN cites Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources.

The sources said the surface-to-air missiles have significantly buttressed RSF paramilitary fighters.

Journalists have managed to indirectly verify arms transfers using satellite imagery. CNN and open-source group All Eyes on Wagner have analysed the images.

Two days before the clashes between RSF and Sudanese military, a Russian transport plane was shuttling between two key Libyan air bases belonging to Khalifa Haftar, a Wagner-backed general, and used by the sanctioned Russian fighting group.

CNN sources state that the transfer of missiles occurred on 13 April.

“For years, Dagalo [the RSF leader] has been a key beneficiary from Russian involvement in Sudan, as the primary recipient of Moscow’s weapons and training,” CNN notes.

On 15 April, clashes broke out between the country’s army and the Rapid Reaction Forces in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. As a result, dozens of servicemen and 56 civilians were killed.

Over the past few years, the country has seen two coups involving the army and the RSF. In 2019, they toppled the authoritarian ruler Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan for 30 years. In 2021, the civilian transitional government was removed from power. After that, a military council consisting of high-ranking generals began to rule the country. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the military, and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo are both members of this body.

The reason behind the clash was the issue of integrating the RSF into the structure of the military. The Rapid Reaction Force is a paramilitary organisation created on the basis of the pro-government Janjaweed militia in 2013. The military was pushing the RSF towards rapid integration, but the rebels themselves wanted the process to take ten years. In addition, it was not clear how the ranks would be revised as a result of this integration.