The United Nations said Thursday that foreign networks are helping fuel Sudan’s brutal war, which has raged between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since 2023, killing at least 59,000 people, displacing about 13 million and pushing large parts of the country into famine.
A U.N. investigation found that a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Chad and other countries supplied the RSF with military contractors, weapons, logistics and training.
“The mission finds reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network supplied the Rapid Support Forces with weapons, logistics, training and foreign personnel, including Colombian contractors involved in advanced weapons and drone systems,” according to a summary of the investigation by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan.
The mission is an independent body established by the U.N. Human Rights Council to investigate violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Sudan.
It found that “individuals and entities operating from, registered in or linked to the United Arab Emirates played a significant role in networks involved in the recruitment, financing, transportation and deployment of foreign military contractors and the provision of military-related support benefiting the Rapid Support Forces.”
