American officials have told the embattled Sudanese President and head of Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan that they will pressure the United Arab Emirates to stop providing weapons to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The rebels are accused of committing genocide in their fighting in the country’s civil war.
In response to a question from PassBlue after a press conference held at the Sudanese mission in New York City on Sept. 26 as to whether the United States is pressuring the UAE enough to stop the transfer of arms to the RSF, Burhan said, “They promised me they will do that.”
Burhan sought support to win the war against the RSF during his brief visit to the UN General Assembly high-level week. The war in his country began in April 2023, and neither side is agreeing to a ceasefire.
“Why has the international system not taken any firm or dissuasive measures vis-à-vis this group and those who support it, despite everything that’s been done?” Burhan asked in his speech in the Assembly Hall. “All the crimes we witnessed, crimes against humanity, war crimes, their refusal to implement security council resolutions and decisions adopted by regional organizations.”
He argued that the RSF should be classified as a terrorist group. “The RSF should be called out for what they are,” he said. “They’ve rebelled against the state. They’re committing terrorist crimes and should be considered as such here at the United Nations.”
The war between the SAF and the RSF — which is led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan (Hemedti) — has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. It has incited the globe’s largest hunger catastrophe, with some 26 million people “facing high levels of acute hunger,” while “more than 10 million people have fled their homes since April 2023 — half of them children,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In July, the US Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) accused the RSF “and their enablers” of “acts of genocide.”
Humanitarian-aid groups in Sudan continue to face major roadblocks to accessing people most in need. Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, told PassBlue that the conflict’s intensity is hindering aid delivery.
Mercy Corps, a global aid organization, told PassBlue that apart from the restrictions posed by the conflict itself, the “deliberate imposition of bureaucratic and administrative impediments by all conflict parties” are also preventing essential goods from getting into Sudan.
“These are manmade impediments and must be prioritized by ceasefire negotiators and the international community,” Katy Crosby, Mercy Corps’ senior director for US policy and advocacy, said. “We have sought to safely and creatively reach those in need, through local partners, cash transfers and other means, but it’s a constant challenge getting worse every day.”
The displacement crisis is spreading rapidly to Sudan’s neighbors. Chad is strained by the millions of Sudanese refugees sheltering in the country, while the UN Refugee Agency just declared emergencies in Uganda and Libya, related to the Sudan war. Sudanese refugees are crossing the Mediterranean, even the [English] Channel — “another cost of inaction,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Wednesday.
The humanitarian crisis in the Sudan region has an especially dire effect on women and girls, according to a new UN Women report. Access to health care has been extremely difficult, with 1.63 million women of reproductive age unable to get adequate care.
Janez Lenarcic, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, said during a Sudan-themed side event at the General Assembly high-level week that the parties involved in the war are unwilling to negotiate peace.
Burhan, however, said at the Sept. 26 press briefing in New York City that he and his forces are ready to negotiate for peace, but that it must be done without preconditions. The SAF has continued a ground military operation on many fronts in the capital city of Khartoum to reclaim areas from the RSF. (The rebels took parts of Khartoum in 2023.)
“All the initiatives submitted were not in line with our national vision,” Burhan said. “They did not take into consideration the national position to end the war. We have a national duty to maintain the integrity, peace and security of our homeland.”
The United Arab Emirates’ backing of the RSF has been key to the group’s military advances, experts and diplomats say. According to classified documents seen by PassBlue in June, the RSF has used weapons, communications equipment, armored vehicles and intelligence supplied by the UAE in their fight against the SAF. An SAF airstrike against the RSF-controlled Nyala airport in southwestern Sudan on Tuesday killed four Emirati soldiers, even though the UAE denies supporting the RSF.
Despite a Security Council arms embargo, Burhan’s forces buy weapons mainly from China, Russia and Türkiye, according to Amnesty International. The SAF has reportedly sought weapons from Iran as well.
Hemedti’s forces use the Red Crescent international humanitarian organization as a front for smuggling weapons from Amdjarass, Chad, into Sudan, according to The New York Times.
Aleksandra Sasa Gorisek, a spokesperson for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told PassBlue this week that the Emirati Red Crescent is operating independently from the Chadian Red Crescent in Chad, violating the federation’s practices. The federation has sent two fact-finding missions to investigate the Emirati Red Crescent’s operations but have received “no answers” from the organization, Gorisek said.
Throughout the General Assembly high-level week, world leaders have alluded to the UAE’s support of the RSF without naming the rising world power. In his address in the General Assembly, American President Joseph Biden said the “world needs to stop arming the generals,” while Guterres stated that “outside powers continue to interfere, with no unified approach to achieving peace.”
A spokesperson for the European Union told PassBlue: “We call once again on all third parties, notably countries in the region, that are supplying arms and funds to the belligerents to cease their support immediately. All external actors must work together towards a resolution and refrain from fueling an already explosive situation.”
On Monday, Sept. 23, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed met Biden at the White House, where they announced that the two countries “affirmed the enduring U.S.-UAE strategic and defense partnership.”
The US counts on the UAE as a crucial Mideast ally to try to manage the crisis with Israel and Palestine.
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on the UAE's role in the Sudan war?
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Joe Penney is a writer, filmmaker and photographer who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Lagos. He directed a documentary, “Sun of the Soil: The Story of Mansa Musa,” about the reign of Mali’s 14th-century king. Penney’s articles and essays have been published by The Intercept, The New York Times, Quartz, Reuters and Paris journals. He was West African photo bureau chief for Reuters, and his pictures have appeared in Geo, Jeune Afrique, Le Monde, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time, among others. He has photographed presidential elections in Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone as well as the 2012 coup in Mali and the French military intervention in 2013, Mauritanian refugee camps, mining sites in Niger, migrants in the Sahel, counterterrorism campaigns in Cameroon, the 2013-2014 conflict in Central African Republic and the people’s coup in Burkina Faso in 2014. Penney co-founded Sahelien.com, a news company covering the Sahel region, in 2013. In Africa, he has lived in Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal and speaks English, French and Spanish.
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
If there are any more of those exploding pagers that the Israelis used in Lebanon, they should be sent to Hemedti and the rest of the R.S F. leadership ! Thank you for this article. It is good to see that the US Government, including Congress taking a more active role in trying to stop the ongoing genocide in Darfur and Sudan.