UN investigators find evidence of UAE links to Sudan war

United Nations investigators have found evidence that the United Arab Emirates trained and financed Colombian mercenaries who participated in the siege and massacre of civilians in Darfur last October, a UN report says. As many as 2,000 mercenaries were hired by a UAE-based company with close links to the government, according to the report. They were trained at two military bases in the Emirates and then flown into the Darfur region of western Sudan, the report said. It said the Colombian mercenaries, known as the “Desert Wolves,” established a base in the Darfur city of Nyala and helped operate drones and artillery for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force that has been accused of killing tens of thousands of civilians in the Darfur cities of El Fasher and El Geneina and nearby refugee camps. “Substantial evidence indicates the presence of Colombian mercenaries during the siege and capture of El Fasher,” the report said. RSF forces’ actions in Sudan amount to genocide, UN probe finds The Sudan war has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, forcing an estimated 13 million people to flee their homes. External support, including foreign weapons, money and mercenaries, has been crucial in fuelling the war and sustaining it for more than three years, human-rights groups say. The 72-page report by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan is scheduled to be debated by the UN Security Council on Thursday. It is the second major UN report in recent days to allege a strong UAE link to the RSF, which has been battling Sudan’s military since the war erupted in 2023. The UAE has already denounced the Panel of Experts report and has demanded changes to it. It has repeatedly denied any role in supplying the RSF. A separate UN report last week, by an independent fact-finding mission appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, found that “individuals and entities” from the Emirates played a significant role in “networks involved in the recruitment, financing, transportation and deployment of foreign military contractors and the provision of military-related support” to the RSF. “Witnesses with first-hand knowledge described recurring cargo flights originating from locations in the United Arab Emirates to Chad and onward movement of military supplies and personnel, including foreign contractors, into RSF-controlled areas in Sudan,” the fact-finding mission said. Mona Rishmawi, a member of the mission, said the evidence showed “a transnational chain of networks spanning several countries that provided the RSF with foreign personnel, training, weapons, and logistics.” Opinion: Sudan is caught in another genocide. Why isn’t the world acting? Both the RSF and the Sudanese army have made extensive use of drones from foreign suppliers, the fact-finding mission found. Drone strikes by both sides have killed hundreds of civilians across Sudan this year, it said. Both of the latest UN reports concluded that the military supplies and mercenaries from UAE locations were being transported through Chad, southeastern Libya and the Somali region of Puntland, before arriving in RSF strongholds in Darfur. The UN panel of experts said the RSF has recently begun using a new armoured personnel carrier, with the vehicles appearing “in larger numbers” in Darfur this year. These military vehicles were “most likely made in the UAE, transported by cargo ship to Libya, then driven into Sudan,” it said. The report listed nine manufacturers in the Emirates that could be making the new vehicles. One of the nine is Streit Group, owned by Canadian businessman Guerman Goutorov, which was placed under sanctions by the Canadian government last month for reportedly supplying armoured vehicles to the Russian army. Streit Group has not responded to repeated queries from The Globe and Mail about the multiple reports of RSF deployment of its vehicles over the past two years. Ottawa shuts the doors of embassy in South Sudan without explanation The report by the UN Panel of Experts gave a detailed account of the RSF’s massacre of thousands of civilians in El Fasher in October, 2025, after the paramilitary force captured the city. It cited witnesses who reported seeing hundreds of dead bodies in several places around the city, including in exit routes as civilians tried to flee. Hundreds more were killed in detention sites, and many others were executed during interrogations or after their families failed to make ransom payments, it said. The RSF routinely used rape and other forms of sexual violence as a tactic of war to humiliate and displace non-Arab women and girls in Darfur, the UN investigators found. “This tactic significantly contributed to the RSF’s military advance and consolidation of territorial control,” their report said.