According to the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian Wagner mercenary group has not been active in Sudan since Omar al-Bashir was deposed by army officers in an uprising in 2019.
Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed unfounded concern about Wagner’s deployment to Sudan.
On Telegram, a recording of the company’s founder, Prigozhin, saying, “Wagner is not in Sudan,” was shared.
In 2014, Prigozhin founded the private military contractor. After the ouster of Omar al-Bashir, “Wagner never got involved in domestic political affairs in Sudan.”
Army General Yassir al-Atta claimed Wagner was in Sudan, working at the Jebel Amer gold mine in Darfur, according to the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. A Wagner sniper was also killed, according to Atta.
“Everyone in the world knows where they are,” said Atta to the newspaper. General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemedti, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces fighting the army, was also said to have 53 tons of gold stashed away in Russia.
“There are Wagner elements anywhere there are companies extracting gold for Hemedti in Sudan, or on the borders with Libya or the Central African Republic,” said Atta.
“What Yassir al-Atta said in an interview today is complete nonsense,” Prigozhin said, adding that any undiscovered geological developments in Sudan had long been shut down.
