00:02When you look at the chaos in Sudan today, the cities in ruins, there's one name that
00:07comes up again and again, Mohamed Hamdan Degallo.
00:10You probably know him as Hamedi.
00:12He is the man right at the heart of this absolutely brutal civil war that's just torn the country
00:17to shreds.
00:18And get this quote, it really just sums up the whole contradiction that is Hamedi.
00:23A camel trader who became a ruler with gold, and a butcher without rank.
00:28Wow.
00:28I mean, here's a guy who, they say, never even opened a book, yet he somehow managed
00:33to open the gates of hell in his own people.
00:35So the big question is, right?
00:37How on earth did a man like this get so powerful only to, well, drag his entire country down
00:42into ruin with him?
00:44Let's get into it.
00:45All right, so who is Hamedi?
00:48And how did one man, just one guy, get enough power to literally ignite a civil war?
00:54To really get why Sudan is burning, you've got to understand the man who lit the match.
01:00And his story?
01:01It's a wild ride from the absolute fringes of society straight into the center of power.
01:06So let's go back.
01:08Hamedi's story really kicks off in Darfur, around the mid-1970s.
01:13Now, this was a place that was already just riddled with tribal conflicts, a lot of poverty.
01:20And for him, this environment wasn't just a place to live, no.
01:24It was basically his training ground.
01:26And you can see his career path laid out here.
01:29And it's kind of terrifying how it all makes sense.
01:32First, he's a camel trader.
01:33He's learning the trade routes, the black markets, all of it.
01:37Well, that kind of business needs protection, right?
01:39So he puts together his own little militia.
01:42Then, fast forward to 2003, the government needs some, let's call them, unofficial forces
01:46for its brutal crackdown in Darfur.
01:48And guess what?
01:49Hamedi's militia is the perfect tool for the job.
01:52He gets absorbed into the notorious Janjaweed, those militias on horseback the state used
01:56to carry out horrific violence.
01:58And just like that, he goes from a local businessman to a weapon of the state.
02:02Okay, so now he's got a foot in the door of the military world.
02:06But Hamedi wasn't the kind of guy who just wanted a seat at the table, nah.
02:10He wanted to build the whole damn kingdom himself.
02:13And the way he did it was by creating these two massive pillars of power that together
02:18made him basically untouchable.
02:21And this is his playbook, right here.
02:23It's brilliant, in a terrifying way.
02:25On one side, you've got the military arm.
02:27In 2013, he's put in charge of the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF.
02:31Think of it as his personal army, a huge paramilitary group that only answer to the president.
02:35That gave him official power.
02:37Then, on the other side, the economic engine.
02:39He gets his hands on the Jebel Amer gold mine, one of the richest in Africa.
02:43And he starts shipping that gold out himself, completely bypassing the government and building
02:47his own personal war chest.
02:48So you see what he did?
02:49He had an official army and his own private bank to pay for it.
02:53So now, he's got a personal army and basically unlimited cash.
02:58Hamedi is not some regional warlord anymore.
03:00Oh, no, he's got bigger plans.
03:03He looks to the Capitol, Khartoum, and starts playing a game of political chess that would
03:08make Machiavelli proud.
03:09And just look at his moves here.
03:11It's all about timing.
03:132018, a revolution is kicking off.
03:16What does Hamedi do?
03:17He makes a huge bet.
03:18He turns on his boss, President Bashir, and sides with the protesters.
03:22Smart, right?
03:23Because when Bashir is overthrown, who's there to step into the power vacuum?
03:26Hamedi.
03:27He becomes vice president, but then his true colors come out.
03:30Just a few months later, his own forces, the RSF, are accused of massacring the very
03:35same pro-democracy protesters he claimed to support.
03:38And the craziest part?
03:39It didn't even slow him down.
03:41By 2020, he was so indispensable, they basically had to invent a special vice president role
03:46just for him.
03:47His power was locked in.
03:48So at this point, Hamedi is officially the number two guy in all of Sudan.
03:53The only person more powerful is his supposed partner, General Al-Burhan, the head of the
03:59regular army.
04:00But let's be real.
04:01This partnership, it was a ticking time bomb.
04:05An alliance built on pure convenience.
04:07And it was about to go off.
04:10And the fuse that lit that bomb was this one little term, RSF integration.
04:15Now, on paper, it sounds perfectly reasonable.
04:18The idea was to merge Hamedi's private army, the RSF, into the official Sudanese army.
04:23You know, a country should only have one military.
04:26Makes sense.
04:26But for Hamedi, this was not just some paperwork.
04:29This was everything.
04:31It was an existential threat to his entire empire.
04:35And this is where it all comes to a head.
04:37You've got two generals staring each other down.
04:39On one side, you've General Al-Burhan.
04:41He's saying, look, we need one army under one command.
04:44It's about national unity.
04:45But on the other side, you've got Hamedi.
04:48And to him, the RSF is his power.
04:51It's his leverage, his security, his moneymaker.
04:53Giving it up?
04:54That means becoming just another general.
04:56No way.
04:57So he says no.
04:58And right there, that was the point of no return.
05:01And then, April 2023.
05:03The standoff doesn't just break.
05:05It explodes.
05:07The argument between two generals turns into an all-out war.
05:10And the capital city, Khartoum, becomes the battlefield.
05:13It's Hamedi's army versus the national army, fighting it out in the streets.
05:18And you have to understand, this was never just a fight between two men for a palace.
05:23This was a war that swallowed an entire country.
05:26More than 45 million people.
05:28And the human cost of this power grab?
05:31It's just beyond catastrophic.
05:33As the fighting spread, the stories that started coming out were just horrific.
05:38Human rights groups started accusing the RSF of committing massacres, war crimes, even genocide.
05:44You hear about incidents like what happened at Wad al-Nora, and it's just sickening.
05:48The world started to react.
05:50The U.S. slapped sanctions on Hamedi.
05:52He's now officially classified as a war criminal.
05:55If you want to try and wrap your head around this scale of this thing, just look at that number.
06:00Over 12 million people.
06:02That's more than the entire population of a country like Sweden.
06:05All of them forced to just leave their homes, leave everything behind, and run for their lives.
06:11And the economy?
06:12It's been completely gutted.
06:14The country's currency lost 80% of its value in just a year.
06:18Think about that.
06:19People's life savings, just gone.
06:22Poof.
06:23And buying simple things like food or medicine?
06:25It became impossible for millions.
06:28And for the people still there, on the ground, the reality is somehow even worse.
06:33The government?
06:34The state?
06:35It's basically collapsed.
06:36There is no healthcare system to speak of.
06:38The U.N. is screaming about a massive famine that's right around the corner.
06:42Things we take for granted.
06:43Power.
06:44Clean water.
06:45Schools for kids.
06:46It's all been destroyed.
06:47The very fabric of society has been torn apart.
06:50I don't think you can sum it up any better than this quote from the United Nations.
06:55They called it simply an open hell.
06:57And it's a hell created by one man's, or two men's, struggle for power that has just devoured
07:04an entire country.
07:05So you go from a camel trader in Darfur to an internationally sanctioned warlord accused
07:10of destroying his own country.
07:12Hemeti's story is one of raw ambition, brutal violence, and a whole lot of gold.
07:16But the biggest question now isn't just what happens to Hemeti.
07:19It's what happens to Sudan.
07:21Is there any way out of this?
07:23Or is the country just staring into a bottomless abyss?
07:26How did Tom Sell and America?
07:26Do not.
07:27Yeah.
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