Weeks after publicly breaking ranks with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces — the paramilitary group widely accused of perpetrating genocide in the country’s Darfur region — a top defector has appeared in new footage performing the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, triggering fierce divided debate across Sudanese digital communities.
Circulated publicly by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, the video shows Ali Rizqallah, better known by his battlefield alias Savannah, standing at the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site. He presses his palms against the structure’s iconic black kiswa cloth, offering public prayers for his war-ravaged homeland as thousands of fellow pilgrims circle the site behind him. In the audio recording of the clip, Savannah calls on God to grant unity to Sudanese forces, halt ongoing bloodshed, end the two-year civil war, lift the nation’s crippling crisis, and bring judgment against what he terms “every tyrant”.
Savannah’s defection from the RSF was first announced in a formal video statement on May 11. Just four days after that announcement, he reemerged in Sudan’s capital Khartoum, where he pledged to take up arms alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) against his former comrades in the conflict zones of Kordofan and Darfur. Before his split from the group, Savannah stood among the RSF’s most powerful and high-profile field commanders. He led multiple operations that allowed the paramilitary force to seize key strategic territories across North Darfur and West Kordofan, including the critical town of al-Nahud, and has been linked to the recruitment of foreign fighters from neighboring Chad and Niger.
A former leader of an independent armed movement, Savannah was first integrated into the SAF with the rank of brigadier general under a 2013 peace deal with the government of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. He was stripped of that rank by a military court in 2021, following Bashir’s ouster from power, and only joined the RSF when the current civil war broke out in mid-April 2023. During a May 16 press conference in Khartoum, Savannah framed his initial decision to align with the RSF as one born of coercion, not ideology. He claimed he had no other option amid widespread intimidation and retaliatory campaigns targeting the families of anyone who refused to fight alongside the group, saying “I and my family were among the victims of the militia, like the rest of the Sudanese”. He has also stated he is willing to face legal accountability for any accusations brought against him.
In that same press briefing, Savannah alleged that dozens of field and tribal commanders are still being forced to fight for the RSF against their will, with the group holding their families hostage to guarantee compliance. He added that the RSF has carried out internal purges, executing several of its own commanders in recent days — naming Abdullah Hussein and senior adviser Hamid Ali as recent casualties, with additional killings documented across West Darfur. He also claimed that senior RSF figures, including operations chief Othman Mohammed Hamid (better known as Othman Amaliyat), have been placed under house arrest by the group’s leadership. Savannah predicted that a wave of large-scale defections will hit the RSF in the near future, and confirmed that he and his allied fighters are fully prepared to work toward dismantling the paramilitary organization entirely. He also noted that large stockpiles of weapons continue to flow into RSF-held territories in Darfur, though he declined to name the supplier. International observers have already documented substantial evidence pointing to the United Arab Emirates as the primary source of weapons, equipment and even Colombian mercenaries supporting the RSF.
Savannah is the fourth senior RSF commander to defect to the SAF since October 2024, following high-profile exits by Abu Aqla Keikel, Major-General al-Nour Ahmed Adam (known as al-Qubba), and field commander Bashara al-Huwaira.
The footage of his Hajj pilgrimage has split public opinion among Sudanese social media users. Some commentators have interpreted the act as a public gesture of repentance for his time with the RSF, while others have rejected any religious act as insufficient to atone for the paramilitary group’s well-documented atrocities. In a direct public message to Savannah, Sudanese journalist Sabah Ahmed wrote that the rights of RSF victims cannot be erased by performing Hajj or touching the Kaaba’s coverings, saying simply “Our rights against you have not been forgiven.”
The RSF has faced mounting international condemnation and legal consequences over atrocities committed primarily in Darfur, particularly after the group captured the North Darfur capital el-Fasher in October 2025 following a 500-day siege. The UN Security Council has already sanctioned four senior RSF commanders, with UN investigators concluding that the group’s actions carry “the hallmarks of genocide”. The United States formally recognized the RSF’s actions as genocide in January 2025, and imposed sanctions on RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti. The International Criminal Court based in The Hague is currently conducting investigations into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by commanders from both the RSF and SAF since the conflict began. To date, Savannah has not been personally sanctioned by any international body.
Sudan’s civil war, which has continued unabated since April 2023, has spawned what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis. Clashes between the SAF and RSF have killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced nearly 13 million more, and left more than 40 percent of Sudan’s population facing acute life-threatening food insecurity.