The Sudanese army announced the surrender of a full group of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with all its equipment, after a tight siege in the axes surrounding the city of El Fasher, in a remarkable field shift on the North Darfur front.

The Sudanese army's military media said in a statement on Sunday, July 12, that the army's air defenses thwarted a suicide drone attack that targeted vital sites inside the city, causing panic among the population without recording any casualties, as part of the Rapid Support Forces' attempts to transfer the battles to the stable northern states, according to the statement.

12,000 displaced from South Kordofan

In addition, the Al-Obeid axis witnessed mutual and violent artillery shelling, amid a complete restoration in medical services inside the main hospital due to the power outage, while the Sudanese Ministry of Health announced the registration of 47 new cases of cholera epidemic in the states of Gedaref and Khartoum, amid a medical inability to provide solutions and vaccines.

Local organizations and media reports reported that a new wave of displacement of nearly 12,000 civilians from the villages of South Kordofan towards the southern states was monitored, as a result of the escalation of clashes and the expansion of the violence.

Hemedti's death sentence paralyzes the political path

The judicial sentence issued to death in absentia against the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, (Hemedti), led to a complete freeze on the diplomatic track, after the Advisory Body of Rapid Support considered the verdict a "bullet of mercy" on peace efforts and the American initiative, declaring its refusal to engage in any indirect talks before the legal consequences of the verdict were canceled.

A Sudanese court today issued a death sentence in absentia for Hemedti and others accused of crimes against humanity and genocide, at a time when the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has entered its fourth year.

The verdict came against the backdrop of the accusation of Hemedti, his brothers Abdel Rahim and Kony Dagalo, and 13 others with the murder of the governor of West Darfur state and 15,000 residents of the state capital city of El Geneina, according to the judge's reading of the verdict published by the official Sudanese News Agency.

Dagalo and his brothers are accused of killing the governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abkar, as part of violent attacks by the Rapid Support Forces on the city of El Geneina in 2023, which also witnessed massacres against the non-Arab Masalit tribe, which resulted in the deaths of between 10,000 and 15,000 people. The court directed the international police (Interpol) to contact the countries where the convicts are located for their extradition.

Al-Burhan investigates the crimes of the "Rapid Support"

In August 2024, Sudanese army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan issued a decision to form a committee to investigate what the army says are the crimes of the "Rapid Support Forces", headed by the Attorney General, and the committee in turn submitted the case to the court in 2025, and the "Rapid Support Forces" denies its involvement in the crimes of genocide.

The war between the army led by al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Hemedti, al-Burhan's former deputy, erupted in April 2023, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced, causing the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

Al-Burhan and Hemedti from the alliance to absolute hostility

Burhan and Hemedti were allies in their 2021 coup against the civilian transitional government, which came in the wake of the fall of the regime of former President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan for 30 years with the help of the Islamic Movement, and then toppled by widespread popular protests in April 2019.

During the first months of their alliance, the 2019 constitutional document was issued, which replaced Sudan's constitution and made the Rapid Support Forces part of the Sovereignty Council, which ruled the country during the post-coup transition.

However, disagreements over the integration of the RSF into the army sparked a dispute between the two commanders that quickly turned into bloody battles more than three years ago, and in March 2025, al-Burhan issued an amendment to a 2019 document that included the removal of the RSF from the constitutional articles governing the Sovereignty Council and military courts.