NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council on Tuesday imposed sanctions on four additional individuals accused of fueling the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
They include a key figure in the Rapid Support Forces: Algoney Hamdan Dagalo, the brother of the paramilitary group’s leader, Mohammed “Hemedti” Dagalo. He was identified as having played a central role in the procurement of weapons and other military equipment.
The measures were co-proposed by the UK, US and France under the Security Council’s 1591 sanctions regime. It was the second round of such action in recent months.
Dagalo’s role in securing arms has directly enabled the operations of the RSF, officials said, including its activities in El-Fasher, where widespread atrocities have been reported.
A report published in February by the UN’s Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan detailed grave abuses during the RSF’s siege of the city, including “systematic starvation, torture, killings, rape and deliberate ethnic targeting perpetrated on the most horrendous scale.”
In addition to Dagalo, the Security Council sanctioned three Colombian nationals —Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero and Mateo Andres Duque Botero — for their roles in the recruitment of former Colombian military personnel to fight in Sudan.
Evidence, including videos and photographs, showed Columbian recruits providing tactical and technical support to the RSF. They reportedly served as infantry and artillery fighters, drone operators, vehicle drivers, and trainers, with some of them involved in training children for combat. Colombian mercenaries were said to have taken part in several battles across Sudan, including in the capital Khartoum, Omdurman, Kordofan and El-Fasher.
The UK’s minister of state for Africa, Jenny Chapman, said the sanctions underscored the determination of the international community to hold the perpetrators of abuses accountable.
“We are cracking down on those who facilitate and profit from this conflict,” she said. “We are determined that all individuals responsible for these atrocities will be held to account.
“The UK, in concert with its allies, will continue to use every means at our disposal to drive the warring parties to the negotiating table, to secure unimpeded humanitarian aid access, and to enact justice for the people of Sudan.”
The Security Council’s 1591 sanctions regime, established in 2005, imposes arms embargoes, travel bans and assets freezes on individuals and entities found to be impeding the peace process in the Darfur region of Sudan. The latest measures were approved unanimously by all 15 members of the council’s sanctions committee.
In February, the UK, alongside France and the US, secured sanctions against four RSF commanders linked to the atrocities in El-Fasher, signaling a growing international effort to curb violence and restore stability in Sudan.
The country has been locked in a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF since April 202
