A Sudanese court in Port Sudan sentenced Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to death on July 14, 2026, convicting him of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He was tried in absentia. Al Jazeera reported that his whereabouts are unknown.
Fifteen other senior Rapid Support Forces figures received the same sentence for atrocities in West Darfur, among them his brother Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo. The trial centered on violence in el-Geneina, including the killing of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abakar in June 2023. The RSF denies committing genocide or war crimes.
From camel trader to commander
Known as Hemedti, “Little Mohamed”, Dagalo was born around 1974 in Darfur, into the Mahariya clan of the Rizeigat. The Jamestown Foundation’s Herbert Maack writes that he left primary school in the third grade and traded camels across the borders of Libya and Egypt. Al Jazeera’s 2023 profile says he joined the Janjaweed militia after armed men attacked his trading convoy and killed family members.
When the Darfur rebellion began in 2003, he became a militia commander and led attacks on neighboring Fur villages. He earned a reputation as ruthless and loyal to President Omar al-Bashir, who called him “Hemayti”, meaning “my protector”. In 2013 al-Bashir’s government folded Janjaweed fighters into the newly created RSF and put Dagalo in command.
Money followed. In 2017, according to Maack, Dagalo and his militia took full control of the goldmines of Darfur’s Jebel Amer region from Musa Hilal. Family-controlled companies flew gold bars worth millions of dollars to Dubai and later Russia. Al Jazeera adds that he expanded into mining, livestock and infrastructure businesses and sent RSF forces to Yemen to fight the Houthis.
Allies, then rivals
He stayed loyal to al-Bashir until 2019. Then he and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan removed the president during popular protests, and Dagalo became deputy head of the Transitional Military Council and later joined the Sovereignty Council. RSF forces killed over 100 people at a 2019 protest, which he denied ordering. In October 2021 the two generals carried out a coup against the civilian side of the government.
The alliance broke over a plan for civilian rule in which the army would return to barracks and the RSF would be absorbed into the military under al-Burhan. An analyst told Al Jazeera in 2023 that both men “have calculated that the leadership contest is now a zero-sum game.” War began on April 15, 2023.
The RSF made early gains, then the army counterattacked and, by March 2025, had retaken Wad Madani and the presidential palace. The RSF consolidated control of Darfur and captured el-Fasher in October 2025. It stands accused of “ethnically targeted killings, sexual violence, looting and mass displacements” of non-Arab communities, particularly the Massalit in West Darfur. The United States sanctioned Dagalo in January 2025 after determining that RSF members had committed genocide.
Sources
- Who is 'Hemedti', the puppeteer behind Sudan's feared RSF fighters (Al Jazeera)
- Sudan sentences RSF chief Hemedti to death: Who's he, what's he accused of? (Al Jazeera)
- Janjaweed Commander to Political Power Broker: An In-Depth Profile of Sudanese General Hemedti (Jamestown Foundation, Herbert Maack)
