The conflict in Sudan is often described as a civil war between the government-backed Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). But the most consequential drivers sustaining the conflict are beyond Sudan’s borders, from foreign States to private military contractors, and the transnational smuggling and human trafficking networks, which have turned Sudan into a marketplace of violence. Foreign actors pursue their interests from abroad, while the Sudanese people bear the destruction.
In its new report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirms earlier findings corroborated by other investigative organizations, including the Sentry and Conflict Insights, that the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) operation supplying arms and Colombian mercenaries to the RSF is linked to the highest levels of the UAE government. Abu Dhabi’s interest in Sudan reportedly includes ambitions to exploit the country’s natural resources and access to the Red Sea Port.
The mercenary movements track many of the established Emirati arms supply lines to Darfur, as documented by the United Nations Panel of Experts, international investigators, and the intelligence community, demonstrating how entrenched these trafficking networks are. Throughout the conflict, the RSF has received a continuous supply of arms from the UAE, often airlifted under covert tactics such as disappearing radars or unrecorded takeoffs, particularly in the lead-up to major offensives and atrocities. Early on, the Emirati-sourced arms shipments originally flowed through Chad, but as international scrutiny increased, they were gradually rerouted and diversified through Sudan’s other neighboring countries. Many of these transit points are additionally linked to UAE financing or reportedly set up by UAE nationals in coordination with regional authorities.
The UAE has demonstrated the capacity to intercept and prosecute illegal arms trafficking to Sudan, when conducted by Sudanese nationals and destined for the opposing side in the war, the SAF. By contrast, since the conflict began over three years ago, the UAE has failed to investigate any instances of arms shipments to the RSF, despite the hundreds of documented cargo flights from UAE territory suspected of transferring arms to the RSF in Darfur. The UAE, instead, has reportedly used humanitarian symbols to disguise arms shipments and military support to the RSF, acts that may amount to a war crime under international law (Rome Statute Article 8 (2)(b)(vii)).
The compilation of evidence on the deployment of Colombian mercenaries to Darfur, including via a private security company linked to the Abu Dhabi ruling family, at a minimum demonstrates the clear knowledge of senior Emirati officials. And within a State whose authority is as centralized as the UAE, the overarching arms and mercenary trafficking operation propping up the RSF is more likely a deliberate plan and policy.
As another recent Just Security article discussed, the UAE’s involvement in Sudan is at odds with the global image it seeks to portray. Instead of business as usual, governments and private actors should apply all forms of public, legal, and political means to pressure the UAE to stop facilitating violence in Sudan.
A Battlefield for Foreign Countries
An overwhelming body of evidence shows that Colombian mercenaries have become significant actors in Sudan’s conflict, training and fighting alongside the RSF. According to HRW’s report, Colombian mercenaries were exempt from immigration processing in the UAE and provided priority transportation to UAE military facilities, where they received extensive training by Emirati nationals. Indeed, one of the Colombian mercenaries mentioned a meeting with top Emirati officials, during which “the [Emirati nationals] commanded everything.”
The use of proxies to commit atrocities in Darfur is a well-entrenched strategy by powerful actors far removed from the gold-rich region to destabilize, displace its population, and illicitly extract its minerals. The RSF itself is a paramilitary group that emerged from the brutal Janjaweed militias deployed to Darfur by the Omar al-Bashir regime to outsource its violence against non-Arab communities. The State deliberately used irregular fighters to commit atrocities, as a means of plausible deniability, while rewarding those fighters with land, money, and impunity.
This model has expanded beyond Sudan’s borders over time. These same fighters were later deployed as mercenaries in Yemen, fighting on behalf of the Saudi-UAE coalition. The RSF was also deployed in Libya to back the Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, with military and financial support from the UAE. The UAE denies allegations of its support to the RSF, despite the glaring body of evidence.
The RSF’s trajectory demonstrates that it is a profit-driven force whose commanders have operated within a transnational marketplace of violence long before the current conflict in Sudan began.
For its part, the SAF has its own track record of atrocities and outsourcing conflict and violence. For decades, it relied on militarized solutions as a response to legitimate claims by the Sudanese in marginalized regions. As a result, it created tribal militias, Popular Defense Forces, and Border Guards that emerged from the Janjaweed and later became the RSF. Today, the SAF leans on the backing of Egyptian and Saudi support, Islamist groups, as well as advanced drones supplies from Turkey and Iran, among others, in its fight against the RSF.
Both sides are now embroiled in a regional ecosystem of sponsorship and competition.
Throughout 2025, foreign mercenaries were observed in Darfur as directly supporting RSF attacks and atrocities in North Darfur, including training child soldiers, operating drones, and firing mortars. The new HRW report also points toward mercenary involvement in the El Fasher takeover in October 2025, which the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission determined to bear the hallmarks of genocide, where mercenary presence was observed at the sites of massacres, including the trenches surrounding the city.
And so, Sudan has now become a battlefield for foreign powers, where regional rivalries, Gulf competition, Egyptian-Ethiopian tensions, and Red Sea security all play out through the bodies of Sudanese civilians.
But the external involvement in Sudan is built on the massive illicit, extractive economy that sustains the conflict, thriving in ungoverned regions such as Darfur, Kordofan, and Blue Nile, where State authority has long been absent. For all the actors involved, this war is profitable, as it provides access to gold, gum Arabic, smuggling rents, and geopolitical leverage.
This profiteering is why diplomatic efforts that view this conflict merely as a two-sided conflict between the SAF and RSF, while looking away from those who sustain it, have failed.
Policy Recommendations
To end the atrocities and curb the violence from metastasizing to Sudan’s neighbors, diplomats, policymakers, and legal practitioners should consider the following recommendations focused on localized ceasefires and dismantling the external networks enabling the atrocities.
First, targeted sanctions should not only focus on perpetrators in Sudan, but should target senior foreign State officials and corporate entities involved in money-laundering and arms-trafficking abroad. The sanctions imposed by the U.N., the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the EU fall short of targeting these key drivers.
Second, the U.N., African Union, Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Arab League, and EU must prioritize localized ceasefires as a prerequisite for a peace process that requires the participation of Sudanese civilians. As the warring parties and their foreign sponsors (often at the negotiating tables) are unwilling to enter into a nationwide ceasefire, there are opportunities to implement localized ceasefires in regions such as Darfur, Kordofan, and Blue Nile, where there is a high propensity for mass atrocities. These smaller steps will help build trust among local populations and pave the way for future peace and reconciliation.
Third, States should push for access and international oversight through an embargo-monitoring mechanism over the key nodes within the RSF supply line – airports, training camps, military bases, and transit points.
Fourth, the International Criminal Court and national prosecutor offices should investigate and issue arrest warrants against the foreign arms suppliers and actors empowering the warring parties to commit continuous atrocities. Article 25 (3) (c) and (d) of the Rome Statute provide a clear basis to prosecute foreign nationals aiding, abetting, assisting, and contributing to atrocity crimes in Darfur.
Finally, States that are openly violating international treaties should not be exempt from scrutiny before the International Court of Justice. Although Sudan’s case against the UAE for breaches of the Genocide Convention was dismissed before it began (on procedural grounds), there are alternative pathways to reinstituting proceedings. For example, a State or coalition of States can bring a case for violations of other treaties, including the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination or the Torture Convention, and against additional Respondents, including Sudan’s neighboring States, among others.
In short, Sudan’s war is what modern warfare looks like when States and powerful actors outsource violence to mercenaries, proxies, and transnational networks. It is a war driven by profit, impunity, and geopolitics, with external actors driving ongoing atrocities, requiring corresponding tailored responses. This war and the atrocities therein can be stopped. But that can only happen when the regional networks are dismantled. Within the limited-resourced international justice and accountability landscape, authorities should prioritize investigating outside actors to not only advance justice but also work toward cutting off the violence at the source.
