War is a business': the Colombian mercenaries at Sudan's battlefront

"For Colombian mercenaries hardened by decades of jungle warfare, Sudan's conflict seemed slow at first. In Sudan, they spend the night sleeping they don't even have security because everyone goes to bed, said Carlos, one of hundreds of Colombians hired to fight in the African country. Colombians are different we are used to a different kind of war. So when Carlos and his comrades reached the front, they pressed on through the darkness, driving deeper into enemy territory."

"Carlos arrived in Sudan earlier this year, almost two years into the country's brutal civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has plunged Sudan into one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history according to UN officials: 150,000 people have been killed, women and girls have been abducted and raped and nearly 13 million have been forced to flee their homes, in the world's worst displacement crisis."

"About 260,000 people remain trapped in El Fasher, North Darfur's capital and the army's last major stronghold in the Darfur region, which has been under siege for more than 500 days. Aid has not entered the ravaged city for nearly 18 months and children have been reduced to eating locusts and animal feed. Control map It is there that the Colombians, fighting for the RSF, have now been dispatched."

Colombian former soldiers contracted to fight in Sudan encountered initially slower, less secure conditions but then faced intense combat and high casualties. The mercenaries arrived amid a brutal civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict has produced catastrophic humanitarian consequences: roughly 150,000 killed, nearly 13 million displaced, widespread sexual violence, and severe sieges such as El Fasher where 260,000 people remain trapped and aid has been blocked for months. Colombians have been deployed to frontlines, implicated in training child soldiers, present in displacement camps, and linked to deadly RSF attacks.

Read at www.theguardian.com