One year after the International Court of Justice heard a case accusing Israel of genocide, the world court heard another accusation that garnered less global attention: Sudan’s case accusing the United Arab Emirates of being “complicit in the genocide” devastating its people.
Sudan alleged that the UAE has been providing extensive financial, military and political support to prop up the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a rebel paramilitary force that’s been locked in brutal conflict with Sudan’s army for more than two years — with the aim of systematically destroying non-Arab populations, including the Masalit ethnic group in West Darfur.
The Emirates strenuously denied the allegations, describing the case as a publicity stunt. On the contrary, an Emirati ambassador argued, the UAE was actually working to relieve the suffering of Sudanese people by setting up field hospitals.
This claim is part of a systematic public relations campaign to obscure the UAE’s support for the militia and to mislead the world about its direct responsibility for the ongoing crimes against innocents in the country.
A proxy war
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by conflict between the Rapid Support Forces militia and the Sudanese army. Millions have been displaced and face acute hunger, hundreds of thousands have been killed, and civilian infrastructure has been wrecked. While the conflict popularly described as a civil war between rival factions of Sudan’s military government, it’s perhaps more accurately understood as a proxy war, with foreign actors using the violence to advance their interests in the region.
The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary — which emerged primarily from the 2013 restructuring of Sudan’s notorious Arab Janjaweed militia, with the goal of supporting the central government’s counterinsurgency operations in Darfur and South Kordofan — has over the years committed countless crimes and atrocities including sexual violations and rape, mass killings, unlawful detentions, the targeting of hospitals and churches, and attacks on journalists and media institutions, in addition to ethnic-based killings and recruiting children as soldiers during the ongoing war.
For many years, the UAE has been supporting the RSF militia by supplying advanced weaponry, money and even foreign fighters. This support significantly increased after the outbreak of the war. Why? The UAE believes that once the RSF takes over power, its strong economic and political interests in Sudan will be secured. These interests include exploiting gold and agricultural resources, seizing strategic ports in the Red Sea, and preventing the return of Islamists to power.
The UAE has sought to realize these interests since 2018 by investing over $6 billion USD in Sudan, the University of Birmingham’s May Darwich explains.
“This includes foreign reserves in the Sudanese central bank, agriculture projects and a Red Sea port,” Darwich, an associate professor of international relations of the Middle East, writes in The Conversation. “The UAE has also recruited and paid fighters from Sudan, drawn mostly from the Rapid Support Forces, to join its conflict in Yemen. Since 2019, the UAE has undermined Sudan’s democratic transition following the ouster of long-serving president Omar al-Bashir. Abu Dhabi empowered both the army and the paramilitary force against the civilian wing of the government. With the outbreak of the civil war, the UAE has focused on the Rapid Support Forces.”
The UAE’s funding to the RSF militia has enabled the militia to sustain its war in Sudan and carry out a litany of war crimes in the Darfur region. The U.N. estimates that some 15,000 members of the Massalit tribe were killed by the militia based on their ethnicity. In other parts of Darfur, women were raped and abducted, and children were piled up and shot to death. For months, the city of Al Fashir, the main refugee area in Darfur, has been besieged by the militia.
The PR machine
While the U.N. court concluded in May that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Sudan’s case, the UAE’s aggressive effort to control the narrative, using approaches ranging from disinformation to soft power, has only intensified. Sudan severed its diplomatic ties with the UAE, accusing the Emirates of supplying weapons for the RSF militia’s drone attacks on the country’s wartime capital of Port Sudan. Shortly thereafter, official Emirati media began to highlight the humanitarian assistance it provided to Sudanese refugees.
But mounting evidence of UAE’s support for the militia is causing global protest.
The Sudanese diaspora and human rights advocates have taken to the streets in many cities around the world, calling upon the UAE to abstain from backing the militia. International organizations and rights groups, including Refugees International, have published statements demanding the UAE stop funding the genocide in Sudan. Following outcry from his fans, American rapper Macklemore even canceled his show in Dubai, explicitly citing the UAE’s role in the genocide.
In response to this outcry, the UAE initiated a campaign to enhance its image and manipulate public opinion around its intervention in Sudan. To do so, the UAE has wielded political pressure, disinformation, censorship and distraction.
The UAE has officially stated that it is ending arms shipments to the militia and rejected countless independent reports that expose its involvement in the war. In another case, after the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned seven RSF companies, the UAE responded by claiming that these companies don’t hold active business licenses in its lands; but the RSF companies had licenses and registration numbers in the UAE, as noted in the U.S. sanctions decision.
The Wall Street Journal found that the UAE fabricated flight documents to hide weapons shipments, and Reuters reports that the UAE refused to release suspicious flight manifests requested by the U.N.
Media reports indicate that the UAE even pushed to impede a United Nations investigation into its support for the militia. The Guardian reports that, through its British ally, the UAE reportedly sought to restrain this effort and silence any criticism of its role in the war. The UAE also reportedly canceled its official ministerial meetings with British officials in a show of anger, accusing the British government of standing by while Sudan defamed it.
In February, following the recent defeats for the RSF, the UAE blocked access to a Sudanese website that maps warring parties’ control of land. After a wave of criticism for its support for the militia, the Emirates news agency blocked Sudanese users from commenting on its Facebook page.
To get a taste of the PR machine at work, just read this government press release: “The UAE emphasizes that [Port Sudan’s] claims are merely attempts to derail the peace process and evade the moral, legal, and humanitarian obligations to end the conflict and pave the way for a transitional process that reflects the aspirations of the Sudanese people for security, stability, and development.” Or this state-affiliated news outlet’s headline: “UAE stands tall in Sudan: A humanitarian beacon amid crisis and criticism. UAE Upholds its Humanitarian and Diplomatic Role in Sudan Despite Slander Campaigns.”
To polish its image, the UAE has initiated several humanitarian and media projects, such as supporting Sudanese refugees in Chad and South Sudan, and pledged $200 million in aid to Sudan. (Critics have claimed that some of this humanitarian work, such as the hospital in eastern Chad, may have been used to funnel arms to the militia.) The UAE proposed a one-month truce during the holy month of Ramadan, seeking to appear neutral in the ongoing conflict. And the UAE strongly condemned the attacks on Darfur’s Zamzam refugee camp, without mentioning the direct responsibility of the RSF militia.
The UAE has launched several initiatives and events aimed at winning over the Sudanese people and diaspora, too. The UAE organized the “Sudan in Our Heart” festival to celebrate Sudanese art and culture, a clear step to absorb the growing anger among Sudanese; it organized a “Gate of Sudan” event celebrating the cultural ties between the two countries; and, back in 2023, introduced a one-year resident permit for Sudanese facing crisis and disaster and waived residency and fine fees for Sudanese.
The UAE has hosted some Sudanese politicians — such as Abdallah Hamdok, the former Sudanese Prime Minister — who are aligned with its policy in Sudan and remain silent on its support for the militia. When reporters asked him in June about weapons coming from the UAE, he responded that those focused on the Emirates without addressing Iran and other countries accused of supporting the RSF were “pushing a narrative.”
The irony, of course, is that it is the Emirates that is crafting a false narrative to cover up its culpability. And the more the UAE invests in promoting these lies, the more that the public begins to see through them.
