Foreigners fueling Sudan war: UN

Foreign weapons, military technology, fighters and logistical networks are helping sustain Sudan’s conflict and expanding the warring parties’ ability to strike deep into civilian areas, a UN fact-finding mission said in a report published yesterday, warning that some attacks might amount to war crimes.

Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 following a power struggle between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule. The conflict has devastated the country, displaced more than 14 million people and created what the UN has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The UN mission said investigators found reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network involving individuals and entities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Chad, Libya and Somalia supplied the RSF with weapons, military equipment, logistics, training and foreign personnel.

The UAE, Chad, Libya and Somalia, the RSF and Sudan’s military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The UAE rejected allegations that it had provided military, logistical, financial or political support to the RSF, while Chad insisted it remained neutral in the war and denied knowledge of weapons transfers through its territory, the report said.

The UN mission said it obtained evidence that Colombian contractors played a significant role in operating and maintaining drone systems and other advanced weapons used by the RSF.

It estimated that the total number of Colombian contractors involved could approach 2,000 and said some were present during operations around al-Fashir in Darfur.

Colombia told investigators it opposed mercenarism and was taking steps to address the participation of Colombian nationals in foreign conflicts.

Mass killings of non-Arab communities when the RSF captured al-Fashir bore hallmarks that point to genocide, the UN mission said in a previous report in February.

The RSF has denied such abuses, saying that the accounts have been manufactured by its enemies and making counteraccusations against them.

The mission said its investigation into external support for Sudan’s military was at an early stage, but had found evidence that foreign-supplied combat drones and loitering munitions — which can hover over an area before striking a target — had expanded the army’s long-range strike capabilities.

It said some of those weapons were used in attacks on civilian locations, including Yabus Market in Blue Nile State.

The report found that both sides committed serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in their drone operations, with some conduct amounting to war crimes.

Both sides have previously denied allegations of human rights abuses.

Expanded range, persistence and increasingly sophisticated capabilities enabled Sudan’s military and the RSF to strike far beyond immediate front lines, and evidence points to both sides carrying out drone attacks that killed civilians and hit hospitals, schools, markets and displacement sites.

More than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes from January to May, according to figures cited by the report.

From May to July, RSF drone attacks damaged electricity and fuel facilities in the North Kordofan capital of El Obeid, which was under Sudanese Armed Forces control as RSF pressure intensified in June.

Strikes disrupted water supplies, healthcare, transport and other basic services in a city already under severe strain and partial siege, the mission said.

Among the cases highlighted in the report were SAF strikes on Ad-Da’ein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur that investigators said killed at least 70 people and left the facility non-functional.

The mission reiterated calls for enforcement of the Darfur arms embargo and urged the UN Security Council to extend it across all of Sudan.

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