A Sudanese fighter dubbed the “Butcher of El-Fasher” has been arrested after reportedly live-streaming himself killing unarmed civilians and boasting about killing thousands more.
Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as Abu Lulu, has bragged about killing ‘over 2,000 people’ in Sudan and joked that he would have to start the count over as there were so many.
Linked to a series of killings in Sudan, the warlord says he is part of the same Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group that has now arrested him.
“I wanted to kill 2,000, but I'm sure the number exceeded 2,000, but I got confused about the calculation,” he is reported to have said in one live-stream. “I lost track of it, but I will do it again starting from zero.”
Prolific on a since-banned Tik Tok account, the soldier filmed himself smiling and killing people while they begged for mercy, according to the BBC. In one such video, he is said to have asked a restaurant owner about his ethnicity before shooting him dead when the man confirms he is not Arab.
In another clip, a group of men are seen cowering in a row before they are shot dead at point-blank range, the BBC adds.
Abu Lulu was arrested and detained by the RSF this week for “human rights violations”, the group said in a statement on Telegram on 30 October.
But the RSF has been accused of orchestrating a “PR stunt” with the arrest in an attempt to distance themselves from the atrocities being carried out in Sudan. The group had previously denied any connection to Abu Lulu.
“However, many Sudanese did not buy into this and launched a hashtag: ‘You are all Abu Lulu’ – meaning the entire militia acts like him,” Sudanese writer Mohamed Suliman told The Guardian.
Who is Abu Lulu?
Abu Lulu underwent military training and subsequently joined the RSF special forces in 2013. His family connections to the group’s military leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, helped him rise rapidly within the group.
During his early career he was deployed to Yemen several times and was transferred to the group’s intelligence team upon his return.
He became the personal guard of Abdelrheem Dagalo, Hemedti’s brother and deputy leader of the RSF at the time. In September 2023, sanctions were imposed on Dagalo due to allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses.
Abu Lulu went on to join several battles against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) including in the country’s capital Khartoum. He gained notoriety for his gruesome social media videos in which people are slaughtered.
In one clip verified by the New York Times, a man who pleads to be freed is summarily executed. The BBC confirmed that account has now been banned from TikTok.
Abu Lulu claims he has killed thousands during the war, whose recent escalation saw at least 460 people killed at a maternity hospital in the city as the RSF captured El-Fasher after a lengthy siege.
Satellite images showed the aftermath of brutal killings in the city, where over 2,000 people including women and children are said to have been slaughtered. The RSF denies it is killing civilians.
The RSF released a video of Abu Lulu being driven under heavy guard to Shala Prison, located at the western edge of El-Fasher.
What is happening in Sudan?
The war-torn nation has endured decades of fighting, including 20 coups, two civil wars and the Darfur genocide, for which several leaders were indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, torture, rape and forced transfer.
The recent civil war was sparked in April 2023 after fighting broke out between the RSF, a powerful paramilitary group and the SAF.
After long-serving President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in 2019 - after himself coming to power after a coup in 1989 - a military-civilian government was formed. However, this was overthrown in 2021, led by the two men at the heart of the current conflict.
They are General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s president in effect and head of the armed forces, and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, also known as Hemedti, who is the leader RSF.
They disagreed about the direction of the country, in particular plans to incorporate the RSF into Sudan’s armed forces. This led to bloody clashes in Khartoum in April 2023, with the initiator of the fight still under dispute.
The UAE has been accused of funding the RSF and British military equipment used by the RSF is said to have been found in the country last week, prompting controversy about the country’s sale of arms to the UAE.
Since then, the United Nations has dubbed Sudan the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Over 150,000 people are reported to have been killed and over 12 million have been displaced.
