UAE funding Colombian mercenaries in African state – ministry
Sudan’s government says it has “irrefutable” evidence confirming that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is financing foreign mercenaries, including Colombians, fighting alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group locked in a brutal civil war with the African state’s army.
In a statement on Monday, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry said “hundreds of thousands” of militants from “certain” neighboring countries and beyond Africa, involved in aggression against the government, are also being sponsored by Emirati authorities.
“The Permanent Mission of Sudan to the United Nations in New York has previously submitted this evidence to the United Nations Security Council,” the ministry said, warning that the “unprecedented phenomenon poses a serious threat to peace and security in the region and across the continent.”
Fighting erupted between the paramilitary group and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in mid-April 2023, after months of tension between the two commanders over integrating their forces under a planned transition to civilian rule. Thousands have been killed, but regional and international efforts to broker a ceasefire have so far failed.
On Tuesday, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry “categorically” rejected Khartoum’s latest claims, calling them “false and unfounded.”
“The UAE affirms that these baseless allegations, entirely devoid of evidence, are nothing more than feeble media stunts aimed at diverting attention from the Port Sudan Authority’s direct responsibility for prolonging the civil war,” it stated.
In May, Sudan’s government severed diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi, accusing it of violating Sudanese sovereignty by supplying weapons to its “local agent,” the RSF. The decision followed a setback for Sudan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which on May 5 dismissed a genocide case Khartoum had filed against the UAE.
Sudan had accused the Gulf nation of supplying arms and funding to the RSF, particularly in connection with ethnic violence against the Masalit people in West Darfur. The court said it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, citing the UAE’s reservation upon joining the Genocide Convention in 2005.
