British Journalist: Gathered Evidence Concludes Sudan Was Destroyed Because of the UAE

Sudanhorizon – Mohamed Osman Adam
British journalist Oliver Paul prepared a report for the London Evening Standard, compiling tangible physical evidence obtained from several sources, including items collected by the Sudanese Armed Force (SAD) and Sudanese General Intelligence Services from the battlefield. This evidence included weapons, missiles, artillery, shells, infiltration detection systems, drones, and other equipment.
I have been reading and summarizing articles written on this subject since the beginning of the war, including articles published by newspapers and media outlets, as well as reports from intelligence and military centers in the Middle East, Asia, the European Union, and the United States. This has enabled me to form a clear picture of this report, which I find to be one of the most convincing and evidence-rich news reports on this issue. Perhaps this is because the journalist had the opportunity to verify the evidence himself, and the army and intelligence services deserve credit for making this physical evidence available to the international press.

This article takes the case to a new level: from defensible accusations to irrefutable evidence.
Oliver Paul’s summary indicates that nothing is more damning than the arrival of war crime instruments while the war is still going on. Among the shipment of missiles, shells, and mortars seized from the Rapid Support Forces, a Sudanese paramilitary group widely accused of massacres and rape, are boxes bearing a clear UAE seal. One box contains a Kornet anti-tank missile and is labeled “Abu Dhabi.” Another box is labeled “Joint Logistics Command, UAE.” Most importantly, the report is based on photographs and physical evidence, including military numbers, markings, insignia, and cards with clear and unmistakable images.
The British journalist emphasizes that in a war like the Sudanese one, rife with rumors, denials, and propaganda, such details carry particular weight and significance. Paul recounts that during his visit, the weapons were on display at the headquarters of the Sudanese Central Intelligence Service. Its officers, tasked with tracking the flow of arms into their country, had reached a clear conclusion, one they wanted the world to know: a significant portion of the weapons that transformed the Rapid Support Forces from a chaotic militia into a formidable military force had been secretly supplied by the United Arab Emirates.
He adds that, standing amidst the seized arsenal, Colonel Mohammed Ahmed told him that “the weapons on display were not isolated examples, but rather pieces of a much larger picture.” He quotes the Sudanese official as saying, “The evidence has accumulated, and now we know.” “Sudan was destroyed because of the UAE.”
Explaining what happened in Sudan before the war, the journalist notes that “the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) opposed plans to integrate them into the army, and what was supposed to be a transition to democratic rule turned into a bitter power struggle. In April 2023, the RSF launched a lightning offensive, seizing large parts of Khartoum, the capital. The conflict quickly escalated, with airstrikes, street battles, severe food shortages, and the displacement of the city’s five million residents.”
Paul recounts that the devastation is evident throughout Khartoum today. Streets that were once bustling with cars are now deserted. Almost all central buildings bear bullet holes. Hospitals were so extensively looted that electrical wiring was ripped from walls to extract copper.
He cites examples of the militia’s atrocities: “At a center for rape victims, staff told me how RSF gunmen abducted women for sexual slavery. Its director general says they provided support.” More than 300 women became pregnant as a result. According to a report released this week by Doctors Without Borders, rape is a “distinctive feature” of the conflict and has become “part of daily life” in some parts of Sudan.
The scale of the disaster is immense. Some 14 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Famine was declared in 2024, and 21 million people are suffering from food insecurity. In January, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that the country had fallen into “an abyss of unimaginable depths.” Yet, the outside world is only sporadically paying attention to this conflict, even as the country teeters on the brink of collapse.
The surprise attack stunned the government and the official armed forces. Government offices, along with foreign embassies, were forced to relocate east to Port Sudan.
Since then, Sudanese officials have been preoccupied with a crucial question: How did the militia acquire the weapons that enabled them to launch such a swift attack?
The task of finding an answer has been assigned to the general. Abdel Nabi al-Mahi, head of the Sudanese army’s counterintelligence service, and his team.
The team concluded that most of the weapons were smuggled into Sudan via old tribal routes after the United Arab Emirates supplied them to the Rapid Support Forces. “If the UAE hadn’t done that, the war would have been over,” he says.
To substantiate his claims, he arranged to display the captured weapons and presented photographs of additional ammunition that he said came from the UAE.
He displayed identity cards, which military intelligence said were collected from Colombian mercenaries recruited and sent to Sudan, as well as videos of captured or killed fighters from Colombia and neighboring countries such as Chad, Libya, and South Sudan, which appeared to show foreign fighters shooting Sudanese after they had surrendered.
Thirty miles outside the capital, in a former industrial complex, further evidence was displayed. There, some forty 4X4vehicles, along with Land Cruisers and ambulances, that had been seized from the militias, were stored. Inside one of the Tiger vehicles The destroyed building, which still bears Rapid Support Forces stickers.
A sticker on its windshield, a steel plate, indicated it was made by Nimr Automotive. That was in 2016. The customer: the United Arab Emirates. Sudanese officials see a clear chain of events: foreign supplies originating from the UAE fuel the militias, leading to atrocities.
Of course, other possibilities exist. The equipment may have been diverted, stolen, or planted. Abu Dhabi categorically denies any involvement, categorically rejecting any allegations that it supplied, financed, transferred, or facilitated any weapons, ammunition, drones, vehicles, guided munitions, or other military equipment to the Rapid Support Forces, whether directly or indirectly.
Indeed, the idea that the UAE—a global icon of glamour, modernity, and ambition—could facilitate what happened in Sudan seems almost unbelievable, given its image as a nation of peace and stability. Even the current crisis, which saw Dubai and Abu Dhabi targeted by missiles and drones following the confrontation between Donald Trump and Iran, has only served to reinforce the image of evolving vulnerability rather than brute military power.
It is no longer just Sudanese officials making allegations of Emirati involvement. Two US lawmakers publicly stated last year, after a briefing at the White House, that the UAE had supplied the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). UN investigators are currently investigating how Bulgarian mortars, originally exported to the UAE, ended up in an RSF convoy.
Amnesty International has also released a report stating that Chinese-made guided bombs and artillery used in Sudan were likely re-exported from the UAE to militias.
Researchers at the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab analyzed satellite imagery and flight data, which they said showed an Il-76 cargo plane flying over Rapid Support Forces (RSF)-held territory on a supply route originating in the UAE and passing through neighboring Chad.
Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, urged the UN to “question the UAE and investigate why this aircraft was in an active war zone, what its purpose was, and who was operating it.”
In Sudan, the SAF have gradually reclaimed territory, and with it, a semblance of normalcy has returned. Last year, the RSF was driven out of Khartoum. In February, the city’s airport reopened, its runway cleared of unexploded ordnance, and a temporary passenger terminal erected. Some residents have returned to see what remains of their homes, but the city’s population is still barely half what it once was.
Used weapons are piled up in a park on the banks of the Nile in central Khartoum. The city is devastated after battles between the Sudanese army and the RSF. Salwa Adam Benya, the Humanitarian Commissioner for Sudan, warns that recovery will take years. “The militias didn’t just want to control Sudan, they wanted to destroy it,” she says. Many civilians have lost everything, she adds. “No one knows how many have been killed.”
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) may have been driven out of Khartoum, but they remain entrenched in the Darfur region of western Sudan and active in Kordofan in central Sudan. The recent advance of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has not ended this war. On the contrary, it has intensified it and made it more clearly ethnic and genocidal, making the question of how the RSF acquired its weapons a pressing one.
The RSF commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, has a history in Darfur. Born there, he rose from camel trader to warlord, portraying himself as a champion of the region’s nomadic Arab communities against the dominant Nile Valley elites.

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