Rapid Support Forces

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF; Arabic: قُوَّاتْ الدّعْمْ السَّرِيعْ, romanized: Quwwāt ad-daʿm as-sarīʿ) are a Sudanese paramilitary force formerly operated by the Sudanese government. They originated as auxiliary force militias known as the Janjaweed used by the Sudanese government during the War in Darfur, which the government later restructured as a paramilitary organization in August 2013 under the command of Muhammad Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.

Since 2023, the RSF has been fighting a civil war against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control of Sudan, after seizing power along with the SAF in the 2021 Sudanese coup d'état. In 2025, it established a parallel government called the Government of Peace and Unity.

Its forces have been documented committing war crimes on a vast scale against members of non-Arab ethnicities in Darfur and against Northern Sudanese Arabs (Ja'alin and Shaigiya) in Khartoum state and Gezira State because of their perceived support of the Sudanese Armed Forces.

Their fighters are largely recruited as mercenaries, with funding coming from the capture of gold mines and patronage by corporate and state actors; the group has also hired out its fighters as mercenaries to fight in conflicts and assist governments outside Sudan such as in the Yemeni civil war (2014–present). In more recent years, the RSF has allegedly recruited mercenaries from more distant regions to fight in its war in Sudan, occasionally via US sanctioned firms in the United Kingdom. The RSF has adopted an anti-Islamist stance in its public relations, and has claimed its new state will be a secular democracy with a bill of rights, but these postures have been met with widespread skepticism by observers given the RSF's behavior on the ground.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been widely accused of secretly supplying it with financial support. The RSF has obtained many fighters and arms from neighboring Chad, the government of which has ceased any formal relations with Sudan in an effort to quell these accusations. RSF supply lines run in part through Libya, and RSF forces have been deployed to Libya to work for the Libyan National Army.

The RSF has been accused of crimes against humanity, including genocide of the non-Arab population, by the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch, and the federal government of the United States. In the course of the civil war, their forces have killed hundreds of thousands of non-Arab civilians, used sexual violence systematically, imposed deliberate starvation, and pillaged and burned homes, hospitals, and places of worship, leading millions to flee and creating an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

They have been documented gang raping women and forcing them into marriages, recruiting child soldiers, and forcing civilians to enlist under pain of death. During the 2019 military coup, they killed, raped, unlawfully detained, and pillaged the homes of hundreds of protesters and activists, especially during the Khartoum massacre. In October 2025, the RSF captured El Fasher, the last major stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur, following an 18-month siege. The takeover triggered a massive humanitarian catastrophe characterized by widespread ethnic cleansing and mass killings. Reports indicate that tens of thousands of civilians were murdered during and after the city's fall.