Sudan: Formalising the RSF - EU Policies and Sudan's Search for Funds

What the report says

An African Arguments analysis published through AllAfrica argues that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) became formalised through a mix of domestic security politics and European migration policy. The piece says the RSF grew out of Darfur counterinsurgency militias in the 2000s, later gained an official identity in 2013, and was tied to Sudan’s broader efforts to strengthen regime security and manage internal rivals. It also notes that RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, emerged from that earlier militia structure.

The article places key developments in 2014-2017, when Sudan and the European Union were both pursuing overlapping goals. Sudan’s government was looking for funds and international legitimacy amid sanctions and economic strain, while the EU was responding to migration pressures and sought cooperation on border control and anti-trafficking measures. The analysis links this to the Khartoum Process, the Valletta Summit action plan, and a series of Sudanese laws on asylum, immigration, and human trafficking that, according to the author, helped expand state powers and support the RSF’s institutional role.

The piece says the 2017 Rapid Support Forces Act formalised the group while keeping it under the umbrella of the Sudanese Armed Forces. It also discusses criticism from reports and scholarly work that warned EU migration funding and equipment could indirectly benefit the RSF. The author says the EU repeatedly denied backing the force, but the central argument is that shared interests around migration control helped create conditions for the RSF’s institutionalisation.