How the UAE put a 'ring of fire' round Sudan in a deadly proxy power game

The Gulf nation is accused of supplying the rebel RSF with the weapons that helped it overrun El Fasher and slaughter thousands.

- Isabel Coles reports

Months after civil war broke out in Sudan in 2023, the United Arab Emirates opened a field hospital across the border in the arid eastern reaches of Chad. Cargo planes began landing in numbers at a nearby airstrip, delivering what the UAE said were humanitarian supplies.

But at least some of the cargo was bound for elsewhere on a different mission: to resupply a paramilitary group fighting in Sudan.

Several times a week, weapons and ammunition shipments were unloaded from the planes arriving at Amdjarass airport and reloaded on to trucks, a UN panel of experts said, citing local leaders and armed groups.

From there, small convoys escorted by an armed Land Cruiser made the 50km journey to the Sudanese border and handed the materiel over to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It was one part of what experts describe as a vast logistical network - spanning several African countries - that the UAE has built to prop up the RSF.

After an 18-month siege, the RSF overran the city of El Fasher last month, slaughtering thousands of people and shining an uncomfortable light on the UAE's role in a conflict that had played out in the shadow of the war in Gaza.

"The UAE has built a kind of ring of fire around Sudan during the course of the war," said Cameron Hudson, a former chief of staff to successive US presidential special envoys for Sudan.

"They have kept the RSF in the fight. The war would have been over if not for this Herculean effort by the UAE."

The UAE denies supporting the RSF. Speaking at an emergency session of the UN security council after the fall of EL Fasher, UAE representative Mohamed Abushahab condemned the violence and called on the RSF to ensure the protection of civilians, pledging an extra $100m towards aid operations.