A UN debate on Sudan’s El Obeid laid bare growing tensions over the UAE’s alleged backing of the RSF, amid western reticence to confront it publicly and an NGO complaint alleging intimidation.
An urgent UN debate to avert atrocities in Sudan’s El Obeid last week in Geneva exposed the reluctance of western governments to publicly name the United Arab Emirates over its alleged support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces despite mounting evidence and growing pressure from human rights groups.
A week before the Human Rights Council session, a coalition of civil society groups had written to the council, urging members to explicitly name Abu Dhabi as one of the external actors fuelling the conflict, warning that North Kordofan’s capital, El Obeid – under RSF siege for 18 months – risked suffering the same fate as El Fasher, where a UN inquiry found evidence of atrocities that “bear the hallmarks of genocide”.
Yet, when the debate came on Friday, delegations like the European Union confined themselves to general condemnations of unnamed “external actors”. Only Sudan’s ambassador, who represents general Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan’s government, directly accused the UAE of arming its rivals.
The reticence comes despite a number of independent investigations into Emirati support for the RSF. The most recent, released in April by Human Rights Watch, alleged that the UAE had trained Colombian mercenaries before deploying them alongside RSF fighters.
Contacted by Geneva Solutions, the UAE permanent mission to the UN in Geneva said it “has not provided, and is not providing, military or financial support to any warring party in Sudan”, adding that it had condemned atrocities by both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces during the debate and called for an arms embargo to be extended across all of Sudan.
Intimidation allegations
Tensions spilt into the open on the sidelines of the UN debate. A UAE delegate was alleged to have photographed with his phone an NGO participant during informal consultations on Thursday, in breach of UN rules put in place to protect civil society from intimidation at UN meetings.
A UK delegate chairing the meeting reminded participants that taking photos during the meeting was not permitted, without naming any delegation, according to three people who were in the room. The NGO participant who was allegedly photographed, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Geneva Solutions they didn’t see the delegate taking the photo personally but were informed about it by other delegates.
Geneva Solutions understands that the NGO in question filed a complaint before the council’s presidency on Wednesday, deeming the incident an act of intimidation linked to its advocacy efforts for the council to name the UAE’s role in the war in Sudan.
Pascal Sim, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Council, said he couldn’t comment on specific cases, which are handled confidentially, but that “the Human Rights Council secretariat remains vigilant regarding any acts of intimidation and reprisals”. Only accredited media are authorised to take photographs during meetings at the Palais des Nations, he added.
The UAE mission said it “categorically rejects the unverified claim”, adding that its “delegation has always taken the protection of NGO participants very seriously and has always fully respected the applicable procedures”.
A Norwegian delegate said the UK would respond on behalf of the core group that organised the informal consultations, but the UK permanent mission in Geneva did not respond to questions by the time of publication about the alleged intimidation or why its statement did not name the UAE.
A modest shift
Rights groups have pressured western governments for years to publicly condemn the UAE, both over its role in Sudan’s war and its domestic human rights abuses.
Kevin Whelan, head of Amnesty International’s UN Office in Geneva, said the Human Rights Council emergency session was welcome but insufficient. “The UAE deserves particular focus in an urgent debate on El Obeid, as it is the main military supporter of the Rapid Support Forces encircling the city, an armed group with a documented track record of crimes against humanity,” he told Geneva Solutions.
Despite this, some see things moving in the right direction. “While most states regrettably stopped short of naming the UAE, growing frustration over their continued support to RSF was palpable – throughout the debate and in the resolution,” Hilary Power, UN Geneva director at Human Rights Watch, told Geneva Solutions.
The resolution referred to “the deployment of foreign forces and the supply of weapons, including drones”, language she linked to the UN rights chief, Volker Türk, who told the council this month that “domestic and foreign players are benefiting from the carnage” in Sudan.
But so far, the UN has not publicly singled out any state or other actor. In its report from February on the El Fasher massacre, the UN-backed fact-finding mission on Sudan said the RSF “appears to have benefited from logistical military support”, and that it was “engaging with several states regarding credible information it has received of their own involvement or that of their nationals or entities”.
Joey Shea, senior researcher on Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division and co-author of the report on UAE-trained Colombian mercenaries, said such institutional language could shift the dynamic over time, but that not naming a state was a “political calculation” made against prevailing economic and political interests.
Interests in the balance
The debate comes amid growing scrutiny of western countries’ economic ties to Abu Dhabi. Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab, reportedly told a UK parliamentary committee last month that the UK’s foreign affairs office had prioritised the country’s economic, security and diplomatic relationship with the UAE over its obligations to help prevent the El Fasher massacre. He said others were following a similar script.
“The public response has been downright shameful,” Shea said. “We’re more than three years into this conflict, and the evidence of UAE military support to the RSF has been mounting … yet not a single state has come out and named the UAE directly – not the UK, not the EU, not the US.”
She said decades of engagement showed the UAE was very sensitive to public criticism. “Naming them specifically would go a long way toward pressuring them to end that support, and to use their leverage over the RSF to stop some of its most egregious abuses.”
She argued that the UK and the EU, which have been negotiating trade agreements with the Gulf, “have clearly privileged both trade and security ties over human rights and the concern for the protection of civilians in Sudan”. A case in point, she said, is the muted response to the 2024 mass trials of political dissidents inside the UAE, in stark contrast with similar trials in 2013, which prompted public condemnation and foreign trial monitors being dispatched.
“That has shown how effective the UAE has become at leveraging these economic and trade relationships to fully insulate itself from any human rights criticism from its allies,” she said.
The UAE is not the only country facing scrutiny for Sudan. An NGO source said Egypt had criticised civil society groups at the informal meeting for pushing to see it singled out in statements over its support for the Sudanese Armed Forces.
A familiar pattern?
Shea wasn’t surprised to hear about the alleged incident at the council meeting. She said she had experienced Emirati intimidation tactics first-hand, recalling pressure faced by NGOs at the Cop28 climate talks in Dubai in 2023, when attempting to stage a protest against arbitrary detentions in the Middle East.
Read more: Rights groups accuse UN climate body of censorship at Cop28
“We had printed posters of Emirati dissidents, and UN officials made us tape over their names so only their faces showed,” she said. “When we finally did the action, there was more unofficial Emirati security present than protesters, clearly there to intimidate, and taking pictures of us,” she said. She linked this tactic to the UAE’s surveillance approach.
“Part of their mode of political control is knowing who is saying what, and where. Taking pictures like this can be part of that same intimidation,” she said.