Report Says RSF Group 26 Unit Surrendered to Sudanese Army With Equipment

# Report Says RSF Group 26 Unit Surrendered to Sudanese Army With Equipment

*Event date: 2026-07-31*

By IO Digest Desk

A unit of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces surrendered to the Sudanese army on July 31 and handed over its personnel together with its full military equipment, according to a report by Middle East Monitor citing the state-run Sudan News Agency. The unit was identified as the RSF’s Group 26, though the report said neither the number of fighters involved nor the type of equipment transferred was specified.

Even with those missing operational details, the reported surrender is notable because it points to continued fractures inside the RSF during a war that has already transformed Sudan’s military and political map. Middle East Monitor said the group was received by Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, also known as Al-Nour al-Qubba, along with senior officers from the Sudanese army and the General Intelligence Service. The presence of those figures indicates the handover was treated as more than a routine battlefield detention. It was presented as a political and organizational defection event.

Al-Nour al-Qubba’s role is central to the account. Middle East Monitor described him as one of the RSF’s founding members who defected to the army in April after previously serving among the paramilitary’s senior commanders. The report also said he had taken part in battles for El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, which rebels captured in October 2025. If accurate, that background gives weight to his public reception of the surrendered unit and supports the view that the Sudanese army was trying to convert RSF defections into visible momentum.

According to the report, Al-Nour al-Qubba said similar surrenders were continuing and that multiple RSF members had joined the army in recent months. That claim cannot be independently quantified from the supplied evidence, but it shows how the army-aligned narrative was framing the July 31 event: not as an isolated collapse, but as part of a broader stream of defections.

Middle East Monitor also quoted Capt. Othman Al-Nour Hasab Khalil, identified as one of the surrendered fighters, saying he joined the Sudanese army together with the group after arriving from Bara in North Kordofan state. The report said he urged former colleagues to leave the RSF and cited what he described as the war’s racial and regional character, along with a sense of marginalization inside the paramilitary, as reasons behind the surrender. Those comments, if taken at face value, suggest internal grievances as well as military pressure may be driving defections.

The report included a strongly worded critique from Al-Nour al-Qubba, who said the RSF lacked principles, a cause and a strategy, and argued that foreign support would not change the outcome of the war. There was no immediate comment from the RSF, Middle East Monitor said, leaving the army-linked version of events unchallenged in the supplied source material. That absence of response is important because the article rests heavily on state and anti-RSF voices.

The wider war context remains severe. Middle East Monitor noted that Sudan has been engulfed in conflict between the army and the RSF since April 2023 and said the war has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The July 31 surrender report does not change that broader picture on its own, but it may signal pressure points inside the paramilitary structure if further defections are confirmed.

The source material does not establish the exact size or battlefield importance of Group 26, and it offers no independent verification beyond SUNA as cited by Middle East Monitor. Still, the verified reportable development from July 31 is clear: a news outlet citing Sudan’s state agency said an RSF unit surrendered to the army with its personnel and equipment, and Sudanese army-linked figures used the event to portray the defection trend as ongoing.