U.S. sanctions mercenary recruiters
- The U.S. sanctioned three individuals and two companies accused of recruiting Colombian fighters for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. - The Treasury action specifically named three people and two firms tied to a cross‑border recruitment pipeline. - The measures aim to choke funding and recruitment, but reporting says outside military support for the RSF is deepening, limiting sanctions' ability to end the war (nbcnews.com).
The U.S. has sanctioned a Colombia-linked recruitment network it says sent former soldiers to fight for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. (home.treasury.gov) The Treasury action, announced April 17, named three Colombian nationals and two Bogotá-based companies: Fénix Human Resources SAS, Global Qowa Al-Basheria SAS, Jose Libardo Quijano Torres, Jose Oscar Garcia Batt, and Omar Fernando Garcia Batte. (usnews.com) U.S. officials said the network recruited and deployed former Colombian military personnel to serve the Rapid Support Forces in combat and technical jobs inside Sudan. The sanctions block any property or interests in property those targets hold in the United States. (home.treasury.gov) Sudan’s war began on April 15, 2023, when the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces turned on each other after months of tension over a planned political transition. The fighting has now entered its fourth year. (nbcnews.com) The Rapid Support Forces grew out of the Janjaweed militias that terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s. U.S. officials said the group has carried out summary executions, ethnically motivated attacks, rape, torture, and other abuses during the current war. (nbcnews.com) Treasury said hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan since September 2024. It said they have worked as infantry fighters, artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators, and instructors. (home.treasury.gov) Washington had already sanctioned a broader Colombia-based network on December 9, 2025, saying it recruited ex-soldiers and trained fighters, including children, for the Rapid Support Forces. Treasury said Fénix was set up in 2025 as a replacement for another firm, A4SI, that was hit in that earlier round. (home.treasury.gov; nbcnews.com) The sanctions land as Sudan remains the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, according to the United Nations. UN agencies said this week that about 14 million people have been forced to flee since the war began. (news.un.org; news.un.org) The U.S. also used the announcement to call for a three-month humanitarian truce without conditions between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces. That appeal has followed earlier diplomatic pushes that failed to stop the fighting. (usnews.com; unhcr.org) For now, the U.S. is trying to squeeze one part of the Rapid Support Forces’ war machine: the pipeline that finds trained foreign fighters, moves them across borders, and gets them onto Sudan’s battlefields. (home.treasury.gov)
