The United Arab Emirates has denied sending weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war against the Sudanese army after a leaked UN report said it owned credible evidence that the Gulf country was arming the paramilitary group.
According to the UN report, evidence suggests that the UAE has supplied weapons to the RSF "multiple times per week" through Amdjarass in northern Chad.
UAE Denies Sending Weapons to RSF
Displaced people fleeing from al-Jazirah state arrive in Gedaref in the east of war-torn Sudan on December 22, 2023. The brutal conflict broke out in mid-April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing more than 12,000 people and displacing millions.
On Wednesday, an Emirati official said the UAE does not take sides in the current conflict. The official claimed that the country had consistently called for de-escalation, a sustainable ceasefire, and the initiation of diplomatic dialogue in Sudan.
The UN report, which has not been released yet, was compiled by experts for the UN Security Council. In a letter to the monitors, the UAE claimed that 122 flights had delivered aid to Amdjarass to assist Sudanese fleeing the war.
A UAE official told Reuters last week that the UAE has invited the UN monitors to visit a field hospital in Amdjarass "to learn firsthand about the humanitarian efforts undertaken by the UAE to help alleviate the suffering caused by the current conflict."
The RSF, led by Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, has been fighting a bloody war against the RSF, headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, for over nine months. The UN reported that over 7.5 million people had fled their homes, and over half of Sudan's 49 million people needed aid as a result of the conflict.
Dagalo rules most of Sudan's western region, Darfur, and parts of the capital, Khartoum. The RSF has recently also taken control of Wad Madani, one of Sudan's major cities.
The RSF has been accused, along with Arab armed groups, of carrying out attacks that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, killing up to 15,000 non-Arab members of the Masalit tribe.
Furthermore, the RSF has previously denied the accusations and said any of its soldiers found to be involved would face justice.
The sanctions monitors wrote in their annual report to the 15-member Security Council, "The attacks were planned, coordinated, and executed by RSF and their allied Arab militias."
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Sudan, RSF Committed War Crimes
The RSF and its affiliated militants were found to have committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The US also formally declared in December that the warring parties in Sudan had committed war crimes.
According to the UN report, complex financial networks established by RSF before and during the war enabled it to purchase weapons, pay salaries, fund media campaigns, lobby, and buy the support of other political and armed groups.
It added that the paramilitary group established a network of up to 50 businesses across other industries using the proceeds from its pre-war gold business.
The monitors said that since the war began, most of the gold, previously exported to UAE, was now smuggled to Egypt.
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