The United Nations said in a report Thursday that foreign networks are helping fuel the brutal war in Sudan that has raged between the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces since 2023, killing at least 59,000 people, displacing some 13 million and pushing many parts of the African nation into famine.
It said a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Chad, among other nations, had supplied military contractors, weapons and training to the RSF.
"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, an independent body mandated by the UN Human Rights Council.
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."
