The United Arab Emirates is facing growing international outrage over its involvement in Sudan’s civil war after paramilitary fighters backed by the gulf state went on a rampage in the city of El Fashir late last month, slaughtering families, doctors and other civilians.
Advocacy groups, members of the U.S. Congress and regional experts have condemned the Rapid Support Forces’ actions in El Fashir as a genocide, and blamed the UAE for backing the fighters and fueling the violence that has wreaked havoc across Sudan’s western Darfur region for more than two years. The Emiratis have denied backing the RSF, despite evidence showing the gulf state has provided munitions, drones and other military support to the paramilitary group.
The United Arab Emirates is facing growing international outrage over its involvement in Sudan’s civil war after paramilitary fighters backed by the gulf state went on a rampage in the city of El Fashir late last month, slaughtering families, doctors and other civilians.
Advocacy groups, members of the U.S. Congress and regional experts have condemned the Rapid Support Forces’ actions in El Fashir as a genocide, and blamed the UAE for backing the fighters and fueling the violence that has wreaked havoc across Sudan’s western Darfur region for more than two years. The Emiratis have denied backing the RSF, despite evidence showing the gulf state has provided munitions, drones and other military support to the paramilitary group.
The Sudanese civil war, which began in April 2023 after a power struggle between the leader of the RSF and the country’s army chief, has spiraled into a devastating years-long conflict that has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, displaced more than 12 million others and sucked in regional powers such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, becoming the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The Sudanese armed forces, or SAF, have also enjoyed foreign support, receiving weapons from Iran, Turkey and Russia, The Washington Post previously reported.
In January, the Biden administration imposed sanctions against RSF leader Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and SAF head Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing both sides of committing war crimes.
The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a Nov. 5 statement to The Post that it “denounced the grave humanitarian violations and horrific crimes committed against civilians” across Sudan. “Targeting civilians, residential areas, and vital facilities in all regions witnessing armed confrontations constitutes a dangerous escalation and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, and all human and moral principles,” the Ministry said.
The gulf state’s involvement in the Sudanese civil war stems from its interests in the Red Sea, which sees about 12 percent of world shipping, experts have said. That shipping lane is crucial for trade at Emirati ports. The oil-rich nation also has interests in Sudan’s gold and agriculture sectors, part of a broader effort to diversify its economy.
While the United States has already imposed sanctions against top figures in the RSF and the SAF, Human Rights Watch urged the U.N. Security Council to slap additional penalties on RSF leadership for violating a 2004 U.N. arms embargo on Darfur. The human rights advocacy group has also pressed the international community to “speak out publicly and condemn” the UAE for its ongoing support to “this force that continues to commit atrocities.”
“We have not seen public naming and shaming of the UAE that’s needed right now,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Until now, there’s been absolutely no political cost for the UAE of this ongoing support. This is a country which cares about its image profoundly, and it is absolutely essential that their partners across the globe call them out for this ongoing support to the RSF.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration’s top diplomat offered his sharpest criticism of the RSF’s backers to date.
Asked for his assessment of the UAE’s role in the conflict, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration knows “who the parties are that are involved … that’s why they’re part of the Quad” referring to the U.S.-led mediator group which also includes the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“Something needs to be done to cut off the weapons and the support that the RSF is getting as they continue with their advances,” Rubio told reporters following the Group of Seven ministerial meeting in Canada.
The RSF “don’t have manufacturing capabilities,” Rubio added. “Someone’s giving them the money and someone’s giving them the weapon, and it’s coming through some country. And we know who they are, and we’re going to talk to them about it and make them understand that this is — it’s going to reflect poorly on them, it’s going to reflect poorly on the world, if we can’t stop this.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York) have called for a ban on all weapons sales to the UAE. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators have slammed the gulf state’s role in the war, saying the UAE “fueled and profited from the conflict and legitimized the monsters destroying Sudan.”
Asked about reports of UAE support for the RSF at a security summit in Bahrain last week, Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, did not acknowledge the claim, saying just that the international community made a “critical mistake” by failing to stop the 2021 military coup in Sudan. “We should have put our foot down — all of us, collectively,” Gargash said. “We did not call it a coup.”
The RSF has been using UAE-supplied drones, munitions and other weapons to carry out its campaign of terror in Darfur, The Post previously reported. In 2024, Sudanese military officials in the city of Omdurman allowed Post journalists to inspect a drone that the officials said had been captured from RSF fighters along with munitions for the drone. The officials shared photos of the crates they had captured, including one with labeling indicating the munitions had been manufactured in Serbia and sent to the UAE Armed Forces Joint Logistics Command.
Further, the Sudan Conflict Observatory, a group funded by the U.S. State Department that tracked Emirati flights, tracked 32 flights between June 2023 and May 2024 and concluded with “near certainty” that they were weapons transfers from the UAE to the RSF, according to an assessment shared with The Post in 2024.
The Sudanese civil war entered a new phase in late October when paramilitary fighters captured El Fashir after laying siege to the city — SAF’s last stronghold in the region — for more than a year. About 600,000 people fled the city and its surrounding settlements during that period, but only a fraction reached the neighboring town of Tewila. Many had to pay steep bribes to escape and were robbed, raped or killed on the roads, The Post previously reported.
The United Nations said 260,000 people were left in El Fashir when RSF forces stormed the city. Since then, fewer than 90,000 people have managed to escape, the International Organization for Migration said Wednesday. A citywide blackout has made it difficult to learn more about the fates of those who remained in El Fashir.
“Local activists, human rights organizations like ourselves and many others have for months been warning of what may happen if the Rapid Support Forces take control of the city,” said Bader, of Human Rights Watch. “As we speak, thousands and thousands and thousands of people are unaccounted for.”
U.N. officials have also raised concerns about the violence in Sudan.
Speaking in Qatar last week, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said the international community must make sure “no more weapons come into Sudan,” warning that the conflict in the beleaguered East African nation is “spiraling out of control.”
“Hundreds have been killed, including women, children and the wounded, who sought safety in hospitals and schools. Entire families were cut down as they fled. Others have simply vanished,” said Li Fung, a representative in Sudan for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on Saturday. “What we are witnessing is not chaos. It is a systematic assault on human life and dignity.”
More than a dozen foreign ministers and senior officials from across the world have urged both sides to come to the negotiating table. “Only a broad and inclusive Sudanese-owned political process can resolve Sudan’s challenges,” they said in a joint statement.
On Nov. 6, a spokesperson for the RSF said the paramilitary group has agreed to a humanitarian truce proposed by a U.S.-led mediator group called the Quad, which also includes the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, “to address the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the war and to enhance the protection of civilians.”
But a Sudanese military official poured cold water on the idea that same day. The military would only agree to a truce once the RSF withdraws its fighters from civilian areas and gives up its weapons, the official told the Associated Press.
Fighting in Sudan has since shifted east, with paramilitary forces focusing their effort in the Kordofan region.
Katharine Houreld and Susannah George contributed to this report.
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