LONDON: In an exclusive interview last Monday (Feb.9) with Arab News, Sudan’s Defense Minister Hassan Kabroun accused “a state of evil” of fueling the disastrous rebellion that over the past three years has left tens of thousands of Sudanese dead, displaced more than 14 million and reduced cities to ruins.

Kabroun did not name the “state of evil” he said was responsible for “providing logistical support, weapons, intelligence, and even fighters” to the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

However, during a session at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Sudan's Prime Minister Kamil Idris publicly accused the UAE of providing "assistance, weapons ... support" to mercenaries from Colombia and other countries fighting with the rebels.

"We have evidence beyond reasonable doubt," he said. "It is up to the United Arab Emirates to defend themselves, stop this, then we can enter into peace talks."

A few days later, however, Sudan’s envoy to the UN, Hassan Hamid, named the UAE publicly during a session held in Geneva. He said: “Do you think that merely pledging money will whitewash the shame of your support of such a militia with such a black track record of terrorism?”

Abu Dhabi has consistently denied supporting the RSF, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Last week, Reuters news agency published satellite imagery which it said showed a secret RSF training camp in Ethiopia, which borders Sudan to the east. It reported that eight sources, including a senior Ethiopian government official, claimed that “the UAE had funded the construction of the camp and provided military trainers and logistical support for the site.”

The base was also referenced in an internal memo issued by Ethiopia’s security services and a diplomatic cable seen by Reuters. Almost immediately, a spokesperson for Ethiopia’s government — a close ally and financial beneficiary of the UAE—denied the report, and subsequently declined to renew accreditation for three Addis Ababa-based journalists from the news wire, withdrawing their accreditation to cover the 39th African Union (AU) Summit.

In response to a request for comment relating to the allegations, the UAE’s foreign ministry told Reuters the country was not a party to the conflict and was not participating “in any way” in the hostilities – a claim that is contradicted by overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Since the beginning of 2024, the Sudanese government has repeatedly lobbied the UN Security Council to act against the UAE, which it accuses of complicity in the RSF’s war of terror, and calling for it to be held “legally and criminally responsible for the crimes it is committing against the people and State of the Sudan.”

On June 10, Sudan submitted a damning dossier containing photographs and details of weaponry seized by Sudanese forces on battlefields in Khartoum and Omdurman.

The list of captured equipment included armored vehicles, drones, shells and missiles, all of which had been “sold to the army of the United Arab Emirates and subsequently ended up in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces in the Sudan.”

There was also communication equipment bearing the logo of the Abu Dhabi-based state telecommunications company Etisalat, and several Emirati passports.

In April 2025, an investigation by France 24 had found that munitions manufactured in Europe and supplied legally to Abu Dhabi had been found on the battlefields of Sudan.

Videos, originally posted on social media in November 2024 by militants allied with the Sudanese army in its fight against the RSF, showed captured munitions, including high-explosive 81mm mortar shells, clearly marked as having been manufactured in Bulgaria by a company called Dunarit.

Bulgaria is part of the European Union, which has an active ban on the export of weaponry to Sudan. A review by Bulgaria’s economy ministry confirmed the company’s evidence that the ammunition had been exported legally to the UAE.

France 24 discovered that the mortar rounds had been sold to the International Golden Group in Abu Dhabi. IGC describes itself as a “the leading provider of complex integrated, high-end defence and security procurement, system integration, manufacturing, maintenance and support services for the UAE Ministry of Defense, UAE Ministry of Interior and other governmental defence and security entities.”

Abu Dhabi has previously denied reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that it is exporting arms to the RSF through the UAE port of Fujairah. “The shipment came from China to the UAE, however, we are not responsible for where it goes after that,” said one prominent academic when faced with the accusation on live tv recently.

Mortar rounds are not the only weapons in the hands of the rebels suspected of having come from Abu Dhabi.

On Friday (Feb. 6), trucks carrying badly needed aid to displaced Sudanese families in the southeast of the country were destroyed in an RSF drone attack, which killed an aid worker with the World Food Programme (WFP) and injured many more.

The very next day another drone struck a vehicle carrying displaced persons in North Kordofan province, killing 24 people, including eight children.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a strongly worded condemnation of “the criminal attacks carried out by the Rapid Support Forces.”

It also “rejected foreign interference and the continued flow of illicit weapons, mercenaries, and foreign fighters into Sudan,” adding that “despite some parties’ declared support for a political solution, such actions are a major factor in prolonging the conflict and increasing the suffering of the Sudanese people.”

Abu Dhabi also repeatedly condemned such attacks, including an earlier one on a WFP aid convoy in Mellit, North Darfur, on June 9; an attack on a mosque in El-Fasher city which killed dozens of civilians on Sept. 21; and a drone attack on Dec. 15 on a base of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei in the city of Kadugli, which resulted in multiple deaths and injuries to members of the Bangladeshi UNISFA contingent.

But one thing has been missing from the UAE’s repeated protestations of outrage: the fact that most, if not all, of these attacks were carried out by the RSF, the group to which, according to multiple sources, including the Human Rights Research Center, Abu Dhabi has been “funneling resources, weapons, and money … since the start of the civil war,” and which has been responsible for the bulk of the atrocities carried out in Sudan over the past three years.

Back in November 2024, Democrats in the US Senate introduced a “resolution of disapproval” and legislation aimed at “pausing US weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) until the United States certifies that the UAE is not arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.”

The UAE, said Senator Chris Van Hollen at the time, “is an important partner in the Middle East, but the United States cannot sit idly by as it aids and abets the humanitarian disaster in Sudan – we must use our leverage to try to bring this conflict to a peaceful resolution.”

Two months later, in January 2025, Senator Van Hollen and Representative Sara Jacobs announced that, “based on a Biden Administration briefing and as also demonstrated by recent reporting,” they had “confirmed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is providing weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, in direct contradiction to the assurances it has made to the United States.”

On Jan. 7, 2025, the US State Department sanctioned the RSF and RSF-aligned militias, which had “systematically murdered men and boys – even infants – on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence.”

Hemedti, the group’s leader, was singled out “for his role in systematic atrocities committed against the Sudanese people.”

Crucially, also sanctioned were “seven RSF-owned companies located in the United Arab Emirates and one individual for their roles in procuring weapons for the RSF.”

In November 2025, The Sentry, a Washington-based investigative and policy organization “that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict,” released a report accusing an Abu Dhabi-based company, Global Security Services Group, of arranging for the deployment of Colombian mercenaries in Sudan.

On its website, GSSG describes itself as “the only armed private security services provider to the UAE government.” Although it also describes itself as an “independent” company, The Sentry said it had uncovered corporate records “showing that the Emirati businessman supplying these mercenaries to the RSF is a business partner of a high-level government official in the United Arab Emirates.”

The report called on the US, European Union and the UK to “investigate and, if appropriate, sanction Mohamed Hamdan Alzaabi, Global Security Services Group, Álvaro Quijano, Claudia Oliveros, International Services Agency (A4SI), and Global Staffing SA … for activities related to undermining the peace, security, and stability of Sudan and providing material support to sanctioned members of the RSF.”

The following month, December 2025, the Trump administration in the US issued a series of sanctions.

“Since September 2024,” it said, “hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF (to) provide the RSF with tactical and technical expertise, serving as infantry and artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators, and instructors, with some even training children to fight in the RSF.”

Four Colombians were sanctioned, including Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, “a retired Colombian military officer based in the United Arab Emirates who plays a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan.”

But remarkably, said Eric Reeves, an analyst and fellow at the Rift Valley Institute who has been researching in Sudan for the past 25 years, the UAE itself escaped prohibition, “even though we know that this guy could never be there without the approval of the president, Mohammed bin Zayed.”

On Nov. 19, during the visit to Washington of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he added, “President Trump said ‘We’re going to get involved in Sudan.’ But you can’t get involved in Sudan, either on the humanitarian front or on the political or diplomatic front, if you’re not willing to say the words ‘United Arab Emirates.’

“The week before Trump made his announcement, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, ‘We know these weapons are coming from somewhere, and we know they have to cross a border or borders, and we've got to stop this.’

“But he didn’t mention the UAE, even though every word he said pointed squarely at the UAE. Now look where the Ukraine-Russia talks have been taking place, even as we speak.”

However, during his nomination hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee in January 2025, Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio bluntly called out Abu Dhabi’s role in Sudan. The Emiratis, he said, were “important players in what we hope to resolve in the Middle East,” but “we also need to raise the fact that they are openly supporting an entity that is carrying out a genocide.”

The evidence that Abu Dhabi has been supporting the RSF militarily, said Reeves, “is undeniable, and has been for pretty much a year and a half now.

“The UAE is very adept at making itself seem the indispensable player in the Middle East” and “only those with an interest in protecting the UAE or those who support the UAE are denying it.

“We all know this. The US knows it. The Europeans know it, indeed, the Europeans were very close to calling out the UAE with a European Parliamentary declaration two or three months ago, and at the last moment the Emiratis got them to drop it.

“They’re very powerful, they’re very rich, they’re very canny, and they’re ruthless, and that’s quite a combination.”

Despite this, denials from Abu Dhabi and those close to the UAE government continue to appear regularly on social media. On Feb. 10, Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, an analyst and professor of political science with connections to Harvard, tweeted questioning Reuters’ credibility and claiming its report about a UAE-funded RSF training camp in Ethiopia was “baseless.”

“The UAE has repeatedly confirmed that it does not support any party in the futile armed conflict in Sudan,” he tweeted, adding that “Reuters and other international news agencies are not always accurate; their reports are often leaks from dubious sources with political agendas.”

Others, however, are taking the reports of Abu Dhabi’s support for the RSF seriously.

On the same day Jim Risch, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted: “I am concerned about reports of a UAE-linked training hub for genocidal RSF thugs in Ethiopia with possible supply routes via Somaliland.

“These moves would be escalatory and further reason to designate the RSF as an FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization), bringing consequences for this regional proxy support.”

Last year, Sudan took the extraordinary step of instituting proceedings against Abu Dhabi at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Sudan’s application, filed on March 5, 2025, claimed the UAE “fuels the war and supports the militia that has committed the crime of genocide in West Darfur.”

The UAE government, it continued, “has sent its own agents … to lead rebel RSF militia in carrying out the genocide,” adding that rebel communications and operations “are managed in the United Arab Emirates,” which had “recruited and instructed mercenaries in the thousands, from the Sahel, neighboring countries, and as far away as Colombia.”

Colombian passports were among papers recovered from RSF vehicles captured by government forces in November 2024.

The UAE, Sudan’s ICJ submission added, was sending “large shipments of arms, munitions, and military equipment including fighter drones,” which experts were “training militia members to operate.”

While the case that was submitted was dismissed, the evidence Sudan submitted included records of multiple flights by military cargo aircraft from the UAE to Chad, Sudan’s western neighbor. Flights have also been tracked between Harar Meda, an Ethiopian Air Force base, and Abu Dhabi International Airport and the emirate’s Al-Dhafra military base.

Since then, criticism of Abu Dhabi’s support of the RSF has reached all-time high, despite the repeated tactics of officially denying such support, claiming neutrality and dismissing any media coverage of the horrific war in Sudan as a smear campaign against the UAE as a whole, and an attempt to belittle its independence and progressive thinking. Abu Dhabi can also afford world class legal representation and lobbyists, while war-torn Sudan cannot.

There is, said the Rift Valley Institute’s Reeves, “much speculation” about the Abu Dhabi’s end game in Sudan, “but in general terms they want to a major regional actor, and the region includes not just the Middle East, but Northern Africa, the east coast of Africa, and the market in gold from Sudan, which in many ways they dominate.”

A diplomatic adviser to Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed had stated that regional intervention in Sudan had been “a critical mistake.”

“We all made a mistake when the two generals who are fighting the civil war today overthrew the civilian government,” he said.

“That in my opinion looking back was a critical mistake. We should have put our foot down, all of us, collectively … We did not call it a coup.”

On Sunday, the UAE said it welcomed the US-backed Comprehensive Peace Plan for Sudan announced by Massad Boulos, the senior US advisor for Arab and African Affairs, which called for an immediate truce, humanitarian access, a permanent ceasefire and a transition to a civilian-led government.

In a statement that appeared to distance Abu Dhabi from support for the RSF, Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s junior foreign minister, praised the outlined steps as “essential to paving the way for a transitional process that is independent of the warring parties and extremist groups, including those linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and aligned with the aspirations of the Sudanese people for an independent, civilian-led government.”

“They are openly saying that the RSF and the SAF shouldn’t have a future in the governance of Sudan moving forward,” said Ahmed Soliman, a Chatham house researcher. “The reality of that may be something very different, but this is what they’re openly voicing.

“So, they’re trying to distance themselves from their support, whereas, you know, obviously the evidence on the ground is different.”

On Feb. 3, the US hosted a high-level Sudan donor conference in Washington, bringing together more than 20 international partners, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who pledged a total of about $1.5 billion in donations to the Sudan Humanitarian Fund, managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA.)

High-level representatives of both Gulf nations are expected to be among delegates due to attend another international donor conference on Sudan to be held in Berlin on April 15, the third anniversary of the start of the conflict.

The global community will be pressing for an end to the violence.

Last Thursday, Feb. 5, following a visit to Adre on the Sudanese border in Chad, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told the British parliament she had “witnessed the devastating human toll of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

The camp she visited is home to “140,000 people – 85 percent of them women and children, who have fled the most horrendous violence and violations.”

Cooper described the 1,000 days of fighting as “a regionalised conflict of power, proxies and profit, defined by unimaginable atrocities, by millions pushed into famine, and by the horrific use of rape as a weapon of war – and by suffering that should strike at the core of our shared humanity.”

Atrocities carried out by the RSF, she added, were “so appalling they could be seen from space – blood-soaked sand; multiple piles of bodies; mass graves.”

There was, she added, “disturbing evidence they are seeking and getting hold of ever more dangerous weapons” in a war "being compounded by regional rivalries and vested interests.”

Later on, Cooper said the UK prepared to review arms export licenses to the UAE if any further allegations regarding its role in Sudan arise.