On 19 April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Libyan National Army (LNA) Commander Khalifa Haftar had sent at least one shipment of ammunition from Libya to Sudan to support the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti). On the same day, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said that Hemedti was mobilizing a large force at a northern air base ‘to secure the landing of a military aid plane from regional sides’, without specifying the source of the aid. Further media reports citing witnesses on the ground have reported planes landing at al-Jawf airport in the southeastern city of Kufra, carrying weapons that were then sent on convoys of trucks towards Sudan. Satellite images analysed by CNN also showed a recent increase in the activity of the Wagner group at Haftar’s airbases – notably Khadim airbase near Benghazi and Jufra airbase in central Libya -suggesting that the flights were organised jointly by Russia and the LNA. Russian Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has denied any involvement in the conflict.
