Human Rights Watch is calling on the United Kingdom and other Western governments to hold the United Arab Emirates accountable over its alleged military support for Sudan's notorious Rapid Support Forces, as a new report further exposes Abu Dhabi's links to the deployment of Colombian private military contractors in the Sudan war.
Colombian military contractors linked to violence in Sudan have been tied to the UAE, with a report from Human Rights Watch revealing that the personnel were trained at military bases in the UAE.
In its latest report, titled "From Bogotá to El Fasher: UAE's Role in the Deployment of Colombian Fighters and Other Backing to the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan", Human Rights Watch documented how a UAE-based company recruited Colombian military contractors who were later deployed to Sudan to support the RSF in its war against the Sudanese Armed Forces.
"This report is hoping to end that plausible deniability and force the international community to call out the UAE," Joey Shea, senior UAE researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The New Arab .
The researcher said the report provides "irrefutable evidence" of the UAE's support, a claim the state denies despite longstanding evidence , and that it comes at a time when the international community continues to fail to call on the Gulf state to end its support for the RSF.
Evidence from HRW shows that Global Security Services Group (GSSG), a company based in Abu Dhabi, has hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors since 2024. One military base the Colombians transited through was identified by HRW as Ghiyathi, an area outside the Emirati capital.
The rights group interviewed two Colombian private military contractors who were deployed to Sudan, one former GSSG employee, eight El Fasher residents, and seven other sources, including former Colombian military officers who reviewed corporate records and official documents.
Researchers also verified and geolocated photographs and videos posted online, including by the contractors themselves.
According to Shea, based on a conversation with a contractor, some of them did not go through standard passport control procedures and their passports were not stamped.
"Instead, they exited through the back of the airport and were taken by van to the military training site," she said.
By verifying images and videos, HRW identified four other contractors who made stopovers in the UAE before being deployed to Sudan, noting that the Joint Forces of the Armed Movements, a coalition of armed groups allied with the Sudanese army, intercepted a convoy of Colombians who had entered Sudan from Libya.
Shea also noted there were links between the operation and human rights abuses.
"One contractor Shea spoke to talked of training children as young as 13 for the RSF," which she noted is illegal under international law.
Researchers were also able to locate Colombian contractors who were in El Fasher, North Darfur's capital, when the city fell in October 2025, where the RSF committed widespread killings and rape in what the UN International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan described as "the hallmarks of genocide".
HRW's report shows a pattern of UAE intervention in regional conflicts, with Shea noting the state's backing of the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen and support for abusive local forces in southern Yemen in 2014, when Abu Dhabi was part of the international coalition in the Yemeni civil war.
The rights group also documented cases of the UAE carrying out unlawful strikes during the 2020 conflict and supporting eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar. Recruitment of retired military personnel According to Shea, there is a longstanding relationship between UAE authorities and retired Colombian military personnel, noting that Colombians are often forced into retirement in their late 30s with few benefits, providing fertile ground for private military companies to recruit from.
She added that the UAE conducted a legal recruitment drive of retired Colombian military personnel more than a decade ago and that Colombian fighters were later used in Yemen by Abu Dhabi.
While the Gulf state denies its support, HRW said Emirati authorities "should and would be fully aware of activities taking place on Emirati territory, and specifically on government property and military bases".
The group also noted that private security companies are legally “required to coordinate their activities with UAE authorities and ensure that their activities are not in conflict with other security measures”.
When asked what she believed was the most concerning finding in the research, Shea said the UAE's support for the RSF was "the worst kept open secret", yet the international community has "appallingly failed" to call out the Gulf state by name.
Instead of calling the support for the group "external backing", which Shea described as "downright unacceptable", she said the British government , along with entities and individuals linked to the operation, should be investigated with the aim of imposing sanctions.
Sudanese activist Hala al-Karib also told The New Arab that the UAE has been openly supporting destabilising activities, including recruiting foreign mercenaries from countries such as Colombia and Sudan’s neighbours, to operate in the war, and trying to influence governments and mobilise actors across the region.
"The destruction of Sudan, the destruction of the cities and countries' infrastructure, it just happened quite openly, and no one was actually raising any concerns against the reckless interventions of the United Arab Emirates, nor were there any consequences or accountability for the ongoing recruitments of mercenaries," she said.
She added that recruitment campaigns are also spreading instability across the region, contributing to further tensions and internal conflicts in neighbouring countries, such as South Sudan and Ethiopia.
"What's happening and the silence of Europe, particularly, is shocking, it absolutely compromises the international law, considering all the violations that have happened, " she continued. HRW has also called for an investigation into companies such as GSSG, as well as Emirati national Mohamed Hamdan al-Zaabi, who is named in the report as the company’s CEO.
The rights group said al-Zaabi’s role in hiring private military contractors to support the RSF in Sudan should be investigated in light of the UN arms embargo imposed on Darfur since 2004.
Along with tens of thousands killed during the Sudan civil war over the past three years, the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese army has created what aid groups describe as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, displacing millions inside and outside the country.