A Sudanese criminal court in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan has sentenced Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, widely known as Hemedti, to death in absentia, in a landmark ruling that strikes at the top of the powerful paramilitary group.

The verdict targets Daglo and 15 co-accused over the killing of West Darfur governor Khamis Abbakar and a catalogue of atrocities committed in the region, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Those condemned include Daglo’s brother and deputy, Abdelrahim Hamdan Daglo, senior RSF officers and Arab tribal leaders from West Darfur, according to state media.

The case centres on the dramatic fall of El-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, where RSF fighters and allied militias overran the city after weeks of siege. Governor Abbakar was killed shortly after publicly accusing the RSF of orchestrating systematic attacks on civilians. United Nations experts later estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 people, mostly from the non-Arab Massalit community, were killed in and around the city.

The Port Sudan court, operating under the authority of the army-led government, found Daglo and his associates responsible for directing or enabling those attacks, which included mass killings, sexual violence, the burning of neighbourhoods and assaults on hospitals and public facilities. The judges ordered that the file be sent to the Supreme Court for review and that international arrest warrants be pursued through Interpol and other channels.

The RSF has consistently rejected accusations of genocide and other war crimes, portraying itself as a force protecting civilians and blaming the Sudanese army and allied militias for the bloodshed. Daglo, whose whereabouts remain unclear, has sought to position himself internationally as a political leader, issuing statements and diplomatic messages even as his forces are accused of some of the worst atrocities of the conflict.

The ruling marks the first time Sudan’s judiciary has moved directly against the RSF leadership since the war erupted between Daglo’s forces and the army commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The two men jointly led the 2021 military takeover that derailed Sudan’s fragile transition to civilian rule, before a bitter power struggle over integrating the RSF into the regular army plunged the country into full-scale war.

The conflict has devastated Sudan, killing tens of thousands, uprooting more than 11 million people and creating what the United Nations calls the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis, with Darfur once again at the epicentre of mass violence.