Darfur Arab Tribes Could Tip Scales In War-torn Sudan

Sudanese refugees gather as "Doctors Without Borders" teams provide assistance to war-wounded individuals from West Darfur, Sudan, at Adre Hospital in Chad (Reuters).
Sudanese refugees gather as "Doctors Without Borders" teams provide assistance to war-wounded individuals from West Darfur, Sudan, at Adre Hospital in Chad (Reuters).
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Darfur Arab Tribes Could Tip Scales In War-torn Sudan

Sudanese refugees gather as "Doctors Without Borders" teams provide assistance to war-wounded individuals from West Darfur, Sudan, at Adre Hospital in Chad (Reuters).
Sudanese refugees gather as "Doctors Without Borders" teams provide assistance to war-wounded individuals from West Darfur, Sudan, at Adre Hospital in Chad (Reuters).

A dozen Arab tribal leaders from Sudan's western region of Darfur have pledged allegiance to paramilitaries at war with the army -- a move analysts warn could tip the scales in the months-long conflict.

The war between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has wreaked havoc on Darfur, where experts fear a widening ethnic divide could spell more violence.

In a video released Monday, leaders from seven of South Darfur state's main tribes urged their members to desert the army and fight instead for the rivalling RSF.

"This announcement will have a massive impact" on the war in Sudan, which has killed nearly 3,000 people, said veteran local journalist Abdelmoneim Madibo.

"Like in El Geneina, it will divide South Darfur between Arabs and non-Arabs," he told AFP, referring to the West Darfur capital which has been the scene of major bloodshed and ethnically targeted attacks.

The RSF paramilitary group traces its origins to the Janjaweed -- feared Arab militiamen who committed widespread atrocities against non-Arab ethnic minorities in Darfur starting in 2003.

Many fear a repeat of history in the latest war, with residents and the United Nations reporting civilians being targeted and killed for their ethnicity by the RSF and allied militiamen.

Both sides have long courted young men in Darfur, which is home to a quarter of Sudan's population.

But experts point out that while the war has already taken on an ethnic dimension in the region, it has yet to impact the makeup of the forces, which are comprised of both Arab and non-Arab groups.

The army's second-in-command in both Nyala and neighbouring East Darfur are generals from the Arab Misseriya tribe. Meanwhile, the armed forces count several officers from the Rizeigat tribe -- Daglo's own -- among their ranks.

The leaders of both tribes appeared in Monday's video, rallying support for the RSF.

There has yet to be an exodus from the army's ranks. However, analysts fear the tribal push could bring about further ethnic stratification.

Darfur specialist Adam Mahdi said the announcement carries tremendous weight, saying the tribal leaders represent "the real government" in the region and without them, "the army holds no respect or legitimacy".

The point of Monday's video, he told AFP, was to draw a line in the sand, cut off army recruitment and "clearly state the allegiance" of these tribes to the RSF.

The army could find itself facing a broad united front "pushing it out of South Darfur, where most of its bases have fallen," Mahdi told AFP.

The temptation could be "to arm other tribes and launch a proxy war," he added.

A military source dismissed the call to arms as "a media stunt" by tribal leaders "out for their own interests", speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

For the moment, he said, those interests converge with those of Daglo -- who is "trying to prove he has tribes' support".

But in both southern and eastern Darfur, where Arab tribes are the majority, local fighters have joined the fray on the RSF's side, according to several residents.

Adam Issa Bishara, a member of the Rizeigat tribe, told AFP he is preparing to go and fight for the RSF in Khartoum.

"They're our cousins, we can't abandon them," he said.

The RSF have not announced how many of their forces have been killed under near-daily air strikes from the armed forces in Khartoum.

Mere hours after Monday's video appeared online, witnesses in a West Darfur town reported an attack "by armed men from Arab tribes supported by the RSF".

Activists in West Darfur have accused the RSF of "executing" civilians for being part of the Massalit tribe, one of the major non-Arab ethnic groups in the region,

Rights defenders, tribal leaders and international groups have condemned the assassinations of Massalit officials in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, which has seen some of the worst fighting in the current war.

Observers say the center of fighting in Darfur -- a region the size of France -- is shifting to Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and Sudan's second-largest city.



Syrians Return to Homs, ‘Capital of the Revolution’ 

A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
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Syrians Return to Homs, ‘Capital of the Revolution’ 

A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
A girl holds an independence-era Syrian flag out of the window of a bus carrying displaced Syrians returning home after years of displacement in the northern Aleppo province, at the entrance of the central city of Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

Once dubbed the capital of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad, Homs saw some of the fiercest fighting in Syria's civil war. Now, displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods, only to find them in ruins.

It was in Homs that the opposition first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on peaceful protests in 2011.

The military responded by besieging and bombarding rebel areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin and French journalist Remi Ochlik were killed in a bombing in 2012.

Since Assad's ouster, people have started returning to neighborhoods they fled following successive evacuation agreements that saw Assad take back control.

"The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity," said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

"We removed the rubble, laid a carpet" and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

"Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land."

Her husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.

The siege of Homs lasted two years and killed around 2,200 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

During the siege, thousands of civilians and opposition fighters were left with nothing to eat but dried foods and grass.

In May 2014, under an evacuation deal negotiated with the former government, most of those trapped in the siege were evacuated, and two years later, Assad seized the last opposition district of Waer.

"We were besieged... without food or water, under air raids, and barrel bombings," before being evacuated to the opposition-held north, Turki said.

A boy walks past the debris of buildings in the Khaldiyeh district in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Precious soil of Homs' -

AFP journalists saw dozens of families returning to Homs from northern Syria, many of them tearful as they stepped out of the buses organized by local activists.

Among them was Adnan Abu al-Ezz, 50, whose son was wounded by shelling during the siege and who later died because soldiers at a checkpoint barred him from taking him to hospital.

"They refused to let me pass, they were mocking me," he said with tears in his eyes.

"I knew my house was nearly destroyed, but I came back to the precious soil of Homs," he said.

While protests and fighting spread across Syria over the course of the 13-year war, Homs's story of rebellion holds profound symbolism for the demonstrators.

It was there that Abdel Basset al-Sarout, a football goalkeeper in the national youth team, joined the protests and eventually took up arms.

He became something of a folk hero to many before he joined an armed group and was eventually killed in fighting.

In 2013, his story became the focus of a documentary by Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki named "The Return to Homs", which won international accolades.

Homs returnee Abu al-Moatasim, who remembers Sarout, recounted being detained for joining a protest.

When he saw security personnel approaching in a car, he prayed for "God to drop rocket on us so I die" before reaching the detention center, one of a network dotted around the country that were known for torture.

His father bribed an officer in exchange for his release a few days later, he said.

A vegetable vendor waits for customers in front of a damaged building in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)

- 'Build a state' -

In Baba Amr, for a time early in the war a bastion of the opposition Free Syrian Army, there was rubble everywhere.

The army recaptured the district in March 2012, following a siege and an intense bombardment campaign.

It was there that Colvin and Ochlik were killed in a bombing of an opposition press center.

In 2019, a US court found Assad's government culpable in Colvin's death, ordering a $302.5 million judgement for what it called an "unconscionable" attack that targeted journalists.

Touring the building that housed the press center, Abdel Qader al-Anjari, 40, said he was an activist helping foreign journalists at that time.

"Here we installed the first internet router to communicate with the outside world," he said.

"Marie Colvin was martyred here, targeted by the regime because they did not want (anyone) to document what was happening," he said.

He described her as a "friend" who defied the "regime blackout imposed on journalists" and others documenting the war.

After leaving Homs, Anjari himself became an opposition fighter, and years later took part in the offensive that ousted Assad on December 8, 2024.

"Words cannot describe what I felt when I reached the outskirts of Homs," he said.

Now, he has decided to lay down his arms.

"This phase does not call for fighters, it calls for people to build a state," he said.