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. “And then there began to be much more fighting – and many more deaths,” he said.
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. Read more
Source: The Guardian