The UAE should stop its violations of the UN arms embargo in Darfur

The civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started in mid-April 2023. Its impact has been dire on many levels, with thousands killed and millions displaced internally and in neighbouring countries. Infrastructure has been destroyed, and famine looms.

This war, however, is being prolonged by external actors, notably the United Arab Emirates, which backs the RSF with arms, violating the UN arms embargo in Darfur, infringing Sudan’s sovereignty and setting an example for others to disrespect international laws and conventions, on top of facilitating massive destruction in the region. It’s time for the world to hold the UAE to account and stop it from sustaining the ongoing violence and suffering of the Sudanese people.

The RSF emerged primarily from the 2013 restructuring of the notorious Janjaweed militia. Its purpose was to support the Khartoum government’s counterinsurgency operations in Darfur and South Kordofan. In 2017, the Sudanese parliament passed a law legitimising the militia’s activities, but it has since committed countless crimes and atrocities, including the destruction of villages, the killing of protesters, sexual violations and rape, mass killings and unlawful detentions. It has also targeted hospitals and churches, and attacked journalists and media institutions, while carrying out ethnic-based killings and recruiting children as soldiers.

In September last year, the UN Security Council unanimously extended the sanctions regime against Sudan, including the arms embargo on Darfur. The resolution cited several reasons for this decision, such as the targeting of civilians, restriction of access to humanitarian aid and human rights violations. The UN arms embargo on Darfur, imposed in 2004, was meant to effectively stem the flow of weapons to the region and reduce the intensity of the conflicts there.

Since the eruption of the civil war, though, the UAE has been violating the UN resolution by sending arms and weapons to the RSF.

An investigation by the New York Times exposed that the UAE secretly transferred arms to the RSF under cover of a humanitarian operation, utilising a hospital that it built in eastern Chad. Dozens of UAE aircraft landed in Amjaras in Chad carrying arms that were then moved to the RSF in Sudan. The hospital is also being used as a base to fly drones that attack targets in Sudan.

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Moreover, in November, Human Rights Watch revealed that French-made military technology incorporated into armoured personnel carriers made in the UAE was found on the battlefield being used by the RSF. The following month, the Yale Humanitarian Lab located four RSF artillery pieces that were used to attack a refugee camp in Darfur. The weapons, according to US army sources, are only found in the arsenals of the UAE and China.

The UAE has also relied on its alliances in Libya and Central African Republic, such as the Wagner Company and General Khalifa Haftar, to channel arms and missiles to the RSF.

The UAE intervention in Darfur is not limited to sending arms; it also extends to supplying the RSF with Colombian mercenaries to fight on the front lines. The UN panel of experts on Sudan relied on multiple military sources in the Central African Republic and Darfur; they confirmed that UAE arms and weapons are supplied to the RSF.

The UAE believes that once the militia takes power in Sudan, it can secure and advance its economic and political interests in the country. These include controlling more ports on the Red Sea coast and more agricultural land; preventing the Islamists from having any power (the UAE’s political foes); and recruiting more Sudanese to fight in Libya alongside Haftar, the UAE’s main ally in Libya.

The consequences of the UAE’s violations have been devastating and have facilitated the RSF’s violence in the region.

Human rights groups and independent news sources have documented genocidal actions and ethnic-based attacks in cities such as Ardamata. In other areas, women have been abducted and raped, and forced to marry; and children have been piled up and shot. For months, Al-Fashir, one of the main cities in Darfur and a haven for refugees, has been besieged by the RSF. Indeed, the largest refugee camp in Sudan, which hosts about half a million people, has been shelled by the militia.

READ: WFP suspends food distribution in Sudan’s Zamzam Refugee Camp due to intensified clashes

A wave of global anger is growing against the UAE for arming the RSF and disrespecting the decisions of the UN Security Council. Demonstrations in solidarity with the Sudanese people are held in many western cities, and international humanitarian organisations are also calling on the UAE to stop backing the militia. American rapper Macklemore cancelled a show in Dubai citing the Emirates’ support for the RSF.

In response, the UAE has launched a public relations campaign to repair its image and disinform the world about supposed facts on the ground. It categorically denied sending any arms to the RSF and started to send humanitarian aid to Sudanese refugees in Chad, a step that the refugees rejected and instead demanded that the Emirates should stop arming the militia.

Through its Western allies, the UAE has sought to impede the UN’s independent investigation of its violations. In June 2024, a report revealed that the UK tried to put pressure on African diplomats not to condemn the UAE’s role in aiding the RSF. Moreover, the UAE pushed the UK to be more aligned with its policy when it shifted to becoming more “neutral”.

Most recently, in a pragmatic step to avoid Congress blocking an arms deal with the US, the UAE promised the White House that it is not sending arms to the RSF and will not do so in the future. Within a month, the UAE was found to be continuing to provide the militia with arms.

The UN should adopt different measures to stop the UAE violations.

It should, for example, monitor any violation of its resolutions and support and fund the ongoing effort by independent open-source investigators, journalists and research institutes that represent the main sources of information needed to understand the scale and type of these violations. Moreover, the UN should extend the mandate of the panel of experts for Sudan beyond March 2025, because they are tasked with monitoring the arms embargo violations.

To deter the UAE from further violations, the UN Security Council should establish a sanctions regime to ensure that the UAE is held accountable and will stop its reckless intervention in Sudan. If done properly, this might prevent the next genocide in Darfur.

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