Darfur’s Children in the Militia Marketplace: “Sandal’s” Money Buys Minors’ Innocence for Hemedti’s Wars

Four sources from South Darfur State revealed on Sunday that the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Suleiman Sandal, has recruited hundreds of children from towns, villages, and displacement camps across the Darfur region in preparation for deploying them to combat zones alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia.

Last Thursday, the movement graduated a fighting battalion of more than 300 combatants in the city of Nyala, in the presence of its leader, Suleiman Sandal.

A community leader in the Darfur region told Darfur24 that movement commanders mobilized hundreds of young men from the Atash displacement camp, in addition to others from the camps of As-Sereif west of Nyala, as well as Sakali and Al-Salam south of the city.

The source explained that some of the newly recruited youths were mobilized from the areas of Bulbul Abu Jazo and from towns in the locality of Beliel, southeast of Nyala.

He further indicated that the overwhelming majority of the recruits are under the age of eighteen, noting that they were paid financial sums before being registered for training, ranging between 500,000 and one million Sudanese pounds.