Sudan’s Army Says an RSF Unit Surrendered in Omdurman, and Nobody Will Say How Many
SUNA announced the defection of the RSF’s “Group 26” without a headcount or an equipment list. Al Jazeera Arabic’s headline the same day put the figure at 45 — and placed it in Kordofan, not Omdurman.
Sudan’s state news agency SUNA reported on Friday 31 July that a Rapid Support Forces unit had handed itself and its equipment to the Sudanese Armed Forces in Omdurman. Radio Tamazuj, carrying the SUNA account on 2 August, identified the unit as the RSF’s “Group 26” and noted that SUNA “did not disclose how many fighters surrendered or specify the weapons and equipment handed over.” The group was received by Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as Al-Nour al-Qubba, alongside senior SAF officers and officers of the General Intelligence Service. Al-Qubba is described as a founding member of the RSF who defected to the army in April 2026 and who had previously fought around El Fasher in North Darfur. Radio Tamazuj reported that the RSF did not immediately comment.
The numbers do not line up across the pickup. Sudan Tribune, reporting around 1 August, said fighters surrendered in Omdurman “with full equipment” following army gains in North Kordofan, and gave no headcount. Al Jazeera Arabic’s 31 July headline said the army had announced the surrender of 45 RSF personnel in Kordofan, “including senior officers.” Al-Quds Al-Arabi’s headline described a new split inside the RSF and dozens of fighters joining the army. TRT World ran the “Group 26” framing. Al-Qubba told reporters, in the cleanest quote of the week, that “the RSF lacks principles, a cause, and a strategy,” adding — per Sudan Tribune’s paraphrase — that external backing for the RSF would not change the war’s outcome because its objectives were driven by personal interest.
Assessment: Every version of this traces to one belligerent’s press announcement. Three Arabic outlets carrying one SAF statement is syndication, not corroboration, and the drift between 45, “dozens” and no figure at all is what un-audited announcements look like when they travel. The load-bearing detail is not the headcount but the master of ceremonies: Port Sudan is publicly rehabilitating a founding RSF commander who, on Radio Tamazuj’s single sentence, fought around El Fasher — the town where the UN Fact-Finding Mission said in February it found evidence of a genocidal campaign. Note also that a defector, not a minister, is the one dismissing the patronage question on the record. Eurasia Review was writing about RSF defections emboldening the SAF on 28 June. This is a five-week campaign, not a rupture.