BBC: 'Russian mercenaries' involved in Sudan conflict
Mercenaries from the Russian private military companies that were previously involved in the conflicts in the Donbas and in Syria have gone to fight in Sudan on the side of dictator Oman al-Bashir’s government, reported the BBC Russian service with reference to Oleg Krinitsyn, head of the RSB Group private military company.
“I heard that people have gone there and have even come back with a severe form of malaria,” Krinitsyn said. According to him, the company he heads “has interests there”, but the RSB Group mercenaries are not fighting in Sudan, but rather “are at the places where they are stationed”, since there is a “slow-moving border conflict” in the country.
An unnamed Russian mercenary who fought previously in Ukraine and Syria also claimed that he would soon make plans to travel to Sudan. The BBC source claims that fighters from the Russian private military companies are already fighting there.
Former LPR Vostok Battalion commander Aleksandr Khodakovsky said that “these kinds of rumors are going around, but so far without any confirmation”.
On November 27 former “DPR Defense Minister” Igor Girkin mentioned that some Russian militants were being sent to the northern part of Sudan. “More and more confirmation of the fact that the ‘next stop’ in Nanogeny’s [Putin’s] overseas adventures is going to be Sudan. The type of ‘quick victory’ in Syria, and ‘dealing with international terrorism’ is definitely needed somewhere,” Girkin wrote on his VKontakte page. “A few weeks ago I received information that ‘Wagner’ is already make preparations [after Syria] to go there [South Sudan] – they are looking for specialists and translators remaining from Soviet times (the USSR, as far as I remember, was not very friendly with Sudan, but Soviet military specialists fought in neighboring Ethiopia in large numbers)”.
The civil war in Sudan has been raging since 2013, due to the southern part of the country’s declaration of independence. In 2011, following a referendum, South Sudan became a separate state, and joined the UN. There are about 12,000 UN peacekeepers along the border between the north and south of what was previously the one country.
Omar al-Bashir, dictator of North Sudan, is wanted by the International Criminal Court, since he is accused of committing genocide during the conflict in the Darfur region in western Sudan.
On November 23, al-Bashir met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi. During the talks, he asked the Russian leader to protect Sudan “from the United States’ acts of aggression”.
“He is the legitimate president of Sudan, and as such he is a legitimate head of state. That is why he is meeting face to face with the president,” said Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov in a comment on the charges brought against al-Bashir by the Hague Tribunal.