SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Radio Dabanga – Sudan releases former janjaweed leader Musa Hilal

12/3/2021: Radio Dabanga – Sudan releases former janjaweed leader Musa Hilal

Radio Dabanga report that Musa Hilal, the former janjaweed leader and head of the Revolutionary Awakening Council (RAC)* was released by Sudanese authorities following more than three years in detention.

Hilal is held responsible for numerous atrocities committed in Darfur. With full government backing, his militiamen, popularly called janjaweed, targeted villages of African Darfuris.

In 2008, Hilal was appointed as Presidential Assistant for Federal Affairs. Six years later however, he announced his defection from the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), returned to Darfur and established the RAC.

The RAC consists of Hilal’s militiamen and a number of North Darfur native administration leaders. RAC commanders took control of the Jebel Amer gold mining area in July 2015. According to a UN Security Council report in April 2016, Hilal and his entourage were profiting from vast gold sales in Darfur.

SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Sudan Tribune - Sudan arrests suspects including foreigners involved in Hamdok’s assassination attempt

12/3/2020: Sudan Tribune - Sudan arrests suspects including foreigners involved in Hamdok’s assassination attempt

 Sudan Tribune reports that the Sudanese government has arrested several people, including foreigners, on suspicions of involvement in the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Hamdok.

 In February 2020, Sudanese security forces arrested  a group of individuals manufacturing explosives in the Eastern Nile district of Khartoum state, including a foreigner.

The security forces stated that the militants belonged to an Islamist group and had arrived in Sudan six months earlier with forged Syrian travel documents to conduct explosive attacks which planned to kill Sudanese officials tasked with the dismantlement of the former regime.