section_path: Background/War in Darfur and the formation of the RSF
section_name: War in Darfur and the formation of the RSF
paragraph_text: War in Darfur and the formation of the RSF
  
  By the turn of the 21st century, Sudan's western Darfur region had endured prolonged instability and social strife due to racial and ethnic tensions and disputes over land and water. In 2003, this situation erupted into a full-scale rebellion against government rule, against which president and military strongman Omar al-Bashir vowed to use forceful action. The resulting War in Darfur was marked by widespread state-sponsored acts of violence, leading to charges of war crimes and genocide against al-Bashir. The initial phase of the conflict left approximately 300,000 dead and 2.7 million forcibly displaced; even though the intensity of the violence later declined, the situation in the region remained far from peaceful.
  
  To crush uprisings by non-Arab tribes in the Nuba Mountains, al-Bashir relied upon the Janjaweed, a collection of Arab militias that were drawn from camel-trading tribes which were active in Darfur and portions of Chad. In 2013, al-Bashir announced that the Janjaweed would be reorganised as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and he also announced that the RSF would be placed under the command of the Janjaweed's commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, more commonly known as Hemedti. The RSF perpetrated mass killings, mass rapes, pillage, torture, and destruction of villages. They were accused of committing ethnic cleansing against the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples. Leaders of the RSF have been indicted for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), but Hemedti was not personally implicated in the 2003–2004 atrocities.
  
  In 2017, a new law gave the RSF the status of an "independent security force". Hemedti received several gold mines in Darfur as patronage from al-Bashir, and his personal wealth grew substantially. Bashir sent RSF forces to quash a 2013 uprising in South Darfur and deployed RSF units to fight in Yemen and Libya. During this time, the RSF developed a working relationship with the Russian private military outfit Wagner Group. These developments ensured that RSF forces grew into the tens of thousands and came to possess thousands of armed pickup trucks which regularly patrolled the streets of Khartoum. The Bashir regime allowed the RSF and other armed groups to proliferate to prevent threats to its security from within the armed forces, a practice known as " coup-proofing ".