Bashir’s reliance on ethnic militias traces back, in part, to 1983, when the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army—led by John Garang—launched its war against Khartoum, calling for a decentralized, secular state. The rebellion underscored Khartoum’s vulnerability in the peripheries and the need to establish new regional security arrangements. Following the overthrow of President Jafaar Nimeri in 1985, Khartoum reached an agreement with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, allowing Libya to maintain bases in Darfur for its war with Chad in exchange for weapons (Flint and De Waal, 2008). The flux of Chadian Arabs into Darfur sparked tensions with the Fur communities, and in the decade that followed, competition over land and resources became increasingly racialized between Arab and non-Arab groups. These dynamics laid the foundations for Khartoum’s later strategy of governing through ethnic militias and deepening social divisions on which control depended.
Escalating violence triggered a rebellion among non-Arab communities, with the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). To suppress the rebellion, Khartoum supplied funding and weapons to Arab militia leaders, including Musa Hilal Abdallah and Juma Dagalo, Hemeti’s uncle. These militias—often nomadic Arabs from the Sudan–Chad borderlands—came to be known as the janjawid, responsible for mass atrocities against the region’s non-Arab populations (HRW, 2024).
Divisions within rebel groups emerged quickly, splitting the SLM/A. The SLA-Abdul Wahid al Nur (SLA-AW) was composed largely of Fur fighters, while the SLA-Minni Minawi (SLA-MM) drew from the Zaghawa. Khartoum’s preferential arming of the janjawid also led to inter-Arab fighting (Flint, 2010), highlighting that outsourcing security can lead to fragmenting rival factions beyond the state sponsor’s control.
As commander of the Border Guards militia, Hemeti started recruiting largely from the Rizeigat tribe in 2013. Over the next two years, RSF, together with SAF and other militias, significantly weakened the capacity of JEM, SLA-AW, and SLA-MM in Darfur. As RSF consolidated control of Darfur, Hemeti expanded his own economic empire.
Darfur is part of a larger economic and cultural region that includes southern Libya, eastern Chad, and northern Central African Republic (CAR)—areas beyond the reach of state militaries. In these peripheral areas, there is very little manufacturing, and most economic activity exists outside the formal sector. Value is extracted via acquisition (Lombard, 2020) or through taxation of people, commerce, cattle, and raw resources. This region has a long tradition of smuggling, shaped by shifting norms of what is considered licit or illicit at any given time.
When RSF and SAF offensives pushed rebel factions from much of Darfur, groups including SLA-AW and SLA-MM turned to the Libyan civil war for new sources of revenue. This marked a shift from local rebellion to participation in a regional war economy.
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