A Sudanese Winnipegger says he’s serving as a political adviser to the general leading a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the deadly struggle for power in Sudan, a job which has left some people in the city’s small and tight-knit Sudanese community questioning his involvement with one of the warring factions in the month-long conflict.
Yousif Ibrahim Ismaeil, 49, said in a phone interview with CBC on May 5 he’s a lawyer originally from Darfur in western Sudan who came to Canada as a refugee in 2003. He said he’s a Canadian citizen who moved to Manitoba in 2007 and