Envoys from Sudan and the United Arab Emirates clash at the UN

UNITED NATIONS —

Representatives from Sudan and the United Arab Emirates clashed Tuesday at the U.N. Security Council over allegations by Khartoum that Abu Dhabi is providing arms and other support to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), exacerbating the brutal conflict in Sudan.

“The UAE must stay away from Sudan!” declared Sudan’s ambassador, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, to the council. “That is the first requirement that will allow for stability in Sudan. It must stop its support.”

Mohamed accused the UAE of aiding RSF forces through militias in Chad, southern Libya, and central Africa, adding that Sudan has submitted copies of half a dozen UAE passports found on the battlefield in Khartoum to the council as evidence of Emirati interference. He also claimed, without providing evidence, that wounded RSF fighters are being airlifted to Dubai for medical treatment.

Emirati Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab, seated beside his Sudanese counterpart at the 15-nation council’s horseshoe-shaped table during the meeting on the situation in Sudan, called the allegations “ludicrous.”

“We see this as a shameful abuse by one of the warring parties of Sudan of this Council — using this platform to spread false allegations against the UAE to distract from the grave violations that are happening on the ground,” the Emirati ambassador responded.

The UAE has repeatedly denied sending arms to the RSF, but Tuesday marked the first time their envoy responded in person to these accusations at a council meeting.

A report by a U.N. panel of experts earlier this year indicated there was substance to media reports that cargo planes originating in the UAE capital had landed in eastern Chad with arms, ammunition, and medical equipment destined for the paramilitary group.

Sudan’s envoy urged the council to take action.

“I ask your esteemed council to speak bravely and to take the last required step, which is to openly mention and condemn the UAE so that it would stop this war,” Ambassador Mohamed pleaded.

The United States has expressed concern about regional and international interference in Sudan.

“We must also continue calling on external actors to stop fueling and prolonging this conflict, and enabling these atrocities, by sending weapons to Sudan,” Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at Tuesday’s meeting.

On Friday, she told reporters on a conference call to announce an additional $315 million in humanitarian support for Sudan that there is no military solution to the conflict. She criticized countries supporting the rival generals with arms and ammunition and said she had spoken with the UAE about Sudan’s allegations. She also noted that Russia and Iran are providing support to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

“We have been very, very clear with those actors that they should cease their support for this war,” she said Friday of all external actors. “It is only exacerbating and prolonging the conflict, and it is making the situation more dire for the people of Sudan.”

Battle for El Fasher

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher remains dire. The RSF has surrounded the city, burning and looting communities in its vicinity. They have advanced on the city, where an SAF infantry division is outnumbered and surrounded.

“The Sudanese Armed Forces will defend El Fasher to the last soldier,” Ambassador Mohamed told reporters after the meeting.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says El Fasher is currently the epicenter of Sudan’s humanitarian crisis.

“Amid unrelenting violence and suffering, the lives of 800,000 people — of women, children, men, the elderly and people with disabilities — these lives hang in the balance,” Edem Wosornu, OCHA’s director of Operations and Advocacy, told the council.

Without immediate decisive action, she said, the international community risks witnessing a repeat of the well-documented atrocities perpetrated in West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina, when the city fell to RSF troops last year.

Human rights groups report that thousands of people, mostly ethnic Masalit and members of other non-Arab communities, were massacred by the RSF even after the city fell to the paramilitary.

Today’s RSF includes elements of the Arab Janjaweed fighters who carried out the genocide against African Zaghawa, Masalit, Fur, and other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in the early 2000s.

On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the RSF halt its siege and de-escalate the fight for El Fasher and that both sides allow aid in. The resolution has so far been ignored.

RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has been locked in an armed power struggle with SAF General Abdel-Fattah Burhan for the past 14 months. The fighting has spread from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, to other parts of the country, leaving millions displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.