Colombian guns for hire: Mercenarism in Sudan's war and beyond
An image of the Colombian National Identification Card of Christian Lombana Moncayo went viral as the first concrete evidence of Colombian mercenaries fighting alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. Moncayo’s passport and national ID were picked up by open-source investigators such as Bellingcat, who verified the document to track the movement of the Colombian fighters into Sudan.
The investigations by the Conflict Insight Group and La Silla Vacia revealed accounts of the systematic presence and role of Colombian mercenaries supporting the RSF in Sudan as part of the Desert Wolves brigade (a private mercenary battalion of Colombian veterans led by retired Colonel Alvaro Quijano). Yet, the analysis about the presence of mercenaries in Sudan rarely provides substantial context on the broader issue of the use of private military companies, paramilitary actors and foreign fighters in Sudan or other conflict zones and the political economy of violence which these groups serve.
In the current global warscape, using mercenaries to fight beside conflicting entities has become mainstreamed once again. Mercenarism is a lucrative business benefiting actors residing in the Global North. What is missing from such accounts is how mercenarism results from, and relates to the international political economy of war and the outsourcing of state-sponsored violence.
State weakness and mercenarism in Sudan
Mercenarism is not new in Sudan. All Sudanese governments that have been at war have used foreign mercenaries, paramilitary groups and militias. Sudan illustrates the deeply rooted practice of outsourcing fighting in parts of the war, along with the continuing challenges posed by a series of institutions that have yet to create a collective vision for society or achieve the monopoly of violence.
Mercenarism does not occur in a historical vacuum; in fact, the framework for outsourcing war in Sudan is a continuation of colonial practices of violence, such as the British colonial template for Sudan. The battles that overthrew the Mahdist State in Sudan and installed the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium (1898-1956) were essentially fought through mercenary arrangements. Britain nominally shared sovereignty over Sudan with Egypt. However, at that time Egypt itself was also under British occupation. The Egyptian ruler, the Khedive, governed Egypt at British sufferance, and the army that marched into Sudan consisted of Egyptian military personnel under the command of a British Sirdar, the commander-in-chief. The army was partly financed through the loot of state revenues.
Mercenarism does not occur in a historical vacuum; in fact, the framework for outsourcing war in Sudan is a continuation of colonial practices of violence, such as the British colonial template for Sudan.
This political economy is identical to mercenarism and can be seen as the imperial economy of mercenarism, akin to the practices of the British and Dutch East India Companies, one that minimises the political and economic risks involved in losing soldiers during colonial campaigns and facilitates tax collection, resource extraction, and counterinsurgency.
Under Elbashir's regime, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) were weakened by deliberate marginalisation. The former president opted to empower parallel forces to the army, such as the Janjaweed, the incubator of the RSF. This has left SAF with deeply rooted institutional corruption, severe logistical challenges, and a promotion system favouring officers loyal to the regime, while others were forced into compulsory retirement. All this happened because the army is the only institution with the power to remove regimes and stage coups. The RSF was heavily equipped, allowing it to operate autonomously and, when assigned by the government of Sudan under the Khartoum Process funded by the European Union (EU), which funnelled hundreds of millions to control migration, resulting in the RSF positioning itself as the de facto border manager and eventually becoming the army's rival.
International complicity and silence
In addition to the British, France supported various actors in Francophone Africa and the Sahel. The use of non-state actors during and after the colonial period created a series of organisational and logistical structures that, in fact, helped in creating and sustaining a global mercenary pipeline in Africa. These networks include military bases, corrupt political ties, and resource extraction activities throughout the continent, which often involve private violence and service providers. The entrance of Wagner (now Africa Corps) or Colombian mercenaries across several countries in the region illustrates, in fact, the diversification- not the decline- of mercenary resource extraction on the continent.
There continues to be international complicity in turning a blind eye to and in directly or indirectly supporting mercenary practices. This sustains the political economy of violence across economies and explains why oil, gold, and other resources continue to be exported despite armed conflict. For example, the RSF receives important revenues from gold.
There continues to be international complicity in turning a blind eye to and in directly or indirectly supporting mercenary practices.
However, despite accusations that the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has failed to prevent gold exports from conflict-affected areas, and despite the EU's serious concerns about gold arriving at Swiss refineries and LBMA-approved facilities, no actors profiting from the gold-and-violence supply chain have been blocked or sanctioned, for example through asset freezes.
The selective responses of the international community have sent a clear message to the warlords in Sudan and across the globe: they can get away with committing war crimes as long as they are subservient to rent extraction and do not challenge the political systems of those renting from exploitation and violence.
This is illustrated by the fact that countries like Russia have vetoed any action on Sudan in the UN Security Council. Countries like the US, the UK, and France have similarly used softer instruments of obstruction, pen-holding power, agenda manipulation, and the protection of their allies' interests through diplomatic channels. The Global North is not just an innocent bystander but, in fact, an enabler and a beneficiary of the conditions in which the mercenary economy operates.
Mercenaries in Sudan: Human trafficking or warfighting?
Colombians fighting in Sudan, similarly to South Africans fighting for the Russian Federation, do not necessarily see themselves as mercenaries, but rather as private security contractors who found themselves on the front lines with no way to escape. This blurs the line between mercenarism and human trafficking. Documents retained, threats of violence, and inability to contact family members illustrate that while there are willing bodies wanting to fight for hire, there is an important group of human beings who try to escape hardship and find themselves in a war zone.
This blurs the line between mercenarism and human trafficking.
Precariousness is, in fact, an important driver of supply chains and the human trafficking of Colombian veterans or people with no combat skills at all. There are striking differences among the forces of Academi (former Black Waters military personnel of wealthy nations fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan), Colombians (former soldiers trying to support their livelihoods), South Africans and Nepalese (people with no military experience looking for a job to escape poverty) and Sudanese (benignly recruited to fight for Russia in its war against Ukraine), the reality is that, should these different actors have the opportunity to stay home, earn a livelihood and be safe, the majority of them would choose safety over war.
Countries with ongoing conflicts or weak social protection networks all fit into these categories. Such countries are most likely to be places where mercenary networks can hire many trained ex-combatants and citizens with precarious livelihoods. Mercenaries are just a cog in a war economy run by transnational networks that mine resources and include private military actors who profit from cheap labour and violence for hire. Thus, we cannot talk about mercenarism without talking about human trafficking (i.e., mercenaries from Colombia denounce being deceived by private security jobs only to find themselves going to Sudan). Mercenaries, human rights abuses, child soldiers, and illegal mineral extraction have one feature in common: they are part of the geopolitics of savage capitalism.
This Sudanese Perspectives blog post is written by Azza Mustafa Babiker Ahmed and Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón.
Azza Mustafa Babiker Ahmed is a Sudanese anthropologist and independent researcher specialising in urban transformation, artificial intelligence and the ethics of care in African sociotechnical landscapes, sustainable development, and peace research.
Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón is a scholar of Conflict, International Security and Development with an interdisciplinary background. His research explores how geopolitics and systemic risks shape security and development trajectories in the Global South, using a comparative approach and an interdisciplinary lens. He is an Honorary Research Associate of the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University.
The views expressed in this post are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the SNAC project or CMI.
