Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) has called on United Nations member states to impose an immediate arms embargo on the United Arab Emirates, arguing that its aid to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) makes it complicit in atrocities that UN investigations conclude amount to genocide.
The appeal demands that the UN General Assembly convene an emergency session, and comes a week after a UN fact-finding mission for Sudan warned that abuses of humanitarian law and attacks on critical infrastructure unfolding in el-Obeid echo the assault on el-Fasher.
“The international community still has a window of opportunity to prevent further atrocity crimes,” expert mission member Mona Rishmawi said. “El Obeid must not become the next crime scene.”
Dawn cites a UN panel of experts that mapped UAE-linked supply corridors funnelling weapons, vehicles, and fuel across the borders of Chad and Libya into Sudan. It additionally cites Amnesty International’s analyses of the RSF's utilisation of UAE-made armoured personnel carriers and UAE re-exports of Chinese Norinco ordnance, including GB50A guided bombs and 155mm AH-4 howitzers.
“The evidence of [the] UAE’s support for abusive actors in Sudan is overwhelming,” said Omar Shakir, Dawn's executive director. “The UAE is the principal external sponsor of a force that a UN fact-finding mission has found committed acts of genocide. No legal framework, international or domestic, can justify continued arms transfers to the UAE.”
