A United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based company reportedly hired and transited hundreds of Colombian private military contractors to Sudan in support of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Monday.
The recruitment of Colombian private military contractors further demonstrates the UAE’s role in providing military support to the RSF, which has been repeatedly accused of atrocities in Sudan, said Mausi Segun, executive director of the Africa Division at HRW. Since 2024, Abu Dhabi-based security company Global Security Services Group (GSSP) has hired hundreds of Colombian private contractors to send to Sudan. Recruitment efforts are private. HRW found that the recruits all passed through a UAE military base in Ghiyathi and a military facility in Al Wathba.
The report raised another concern regarding the use of children in armed conflict. An interviewed Colombian contractor trained RSF recruits at its main base in South Darfur. The contractor reported that a number of the recruits were children. The Geneva Convention prohibits the recruitment and use of children under 15 in active armed conflict. The UN Secretary-General verified 16 cases involving child recruitment by the RSF, according to the group.
According to the group, the UAE authorities and GSSP had not responded to its allegations. However, the UAE has long denied any military support to the conflicting parties in Sudan.
The rights group calls on the international community, including the EU, to press the UAE to end its support for the RSF by suspending military cooperation and arms sales. Segun added: “Other countries need to stop accepting the UAE’s blanket denials of support to the RSF, which fly in the face of the facts, and should put an end to its impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Sudan’s foreign ministry has also previously accused the UAE of supporting the RSF. It has also attempted to bring the UAE before the International Court of Justice for its alleged complicity in RSF’s actions in Darfur. However, the court refused to hear the case for lack of jurisdiction. This is because the UAE reserved the jurisdictional clause when it signed the Genocide Convention.
The Sudanese army and the RSF have engaged in a civil war for the last three years. The Sudan war has caused one of the greatest humanitarian crises and mass killings, with 34 million people requiring urgent humanitarian assistance, as the UN recently warned.