A city and its people have held out for 18 months against an invading army. They have fought bravely against the odds, despite being almost starved into submission. Now, the defences have finally fallen, and all hell is being unleashed on the survivors.

El-Fasher—a city in Darfur in western Sudan, where hundreds of thousands fled after the war broke out in April 2023—is now the site of the greatest humanitarian crisis on Earth. According to reports, patients in hospital are being shot in their beds while medical staff are held for ransom. Former MPs are being executed, people beheaded, and the injured tortured and taunted.

The culprits are the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group of tens of thousands that evolved from the murderous Janjaweed militias that terrorised Darfur in the 1990s and early 2000s. Now, the RSF is one of the key sides in Sudan’s grim war, which has torn the once-hopeful country asunder.

For a few short years, Sudan seemed one of the Arab Spring’s rare success stories. In 2018, huge protests led to the overthrow of the Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir. The RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state’s official military, took control in a hybrid civilian-military government. This fragile arrangement disintegrated in April 2023, when open conflict erupted between the two.

While the RSF initially appeared to be in the ascendant, the war has since swung back in the SAF’s favour, with government forces retaking the capital Khartoum earlier this year. Still, neither side seems capable of fully defeating the other. The conflict has warped into a dizzying patchwork of militia movements and their foreign backers—including Egypt, Iran, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and a host of regional governments such as Chad’s.

Unable and unwilling

It is an open secret in the halls of power that there is almost nothing Europe or the US can or will do to stop or punish those responsible for the slaughter in Sudan. They do not have enough influence—as Peter Pham, the special envoy for the Sahel during the first Trump administration, said last week at the FT Africa Summit in London. It is states geographically closer to Sudan—which back different sides in the war—that hold the most sway, especially the Gulf. Europe in particular lacks the capability to project hard power, which would be necessary to pressure the actors responsible for the violence to cease.

While America has some influence in the Gulf, it also lacks political will. Despite its significant military power, it is unlikely that the Trump administration would prioritise confronting the parties involved. Thus, while there are many motivated, able, and knowledgeable officials and experts on both sides of the Atlantic who care deeply about Sudan, higher-level policymakers simply have other priorities.

The UAE’s role

The most influential external actor in Sudan is the UAE, which backs the RSF. Although Abu Dhabi still denies it, this has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.  According to a recent story by the Wall Street Journal, which cited US intelligence reports, the UAE has shipped weaponry—including Chinese-made drones—to RSF forces, which now have been twice accused of genocide in Darfur. The WSJ cites flight-tracking data showing dozens of Emirati cargo flights into eastern Chad, while UN experts have repeatedly requested, but not received, cargo manifests and end-user certificates. In April 2025, investigators traced Bulgarian-made mortar rounds—legally exported to the UAE—to RSF units in Darfur, showing how European-origin arms can be diverted through Emirati networks.

The UAE’s backing of the RSF is not ideological but calculated. The RSF controls much of Sudan’s informal gold trade, as well as inland routes toward the Red Sea, where Emirati firms such as DP World and AD Ports seek logistics and port concessions. The UAE views Sudan’s army as linked to Islamist networks it considers rivals.

The bare minimum

If Europe wants to maintain credibility when invoking international law in Ukraine, Gaza, or elsewhere, it cannot ignore the atrocities happening in Sudan.

There are a few minimal steps Europe can take to hold the perpetrators of violence in Sudan accountable. Its efforts to bring Sudan’s fractured civil society groups together are certainly laudable. However, a more consequential action would involve enforcing transparency.

London, Paris, Berlin and Rome should join the US in calling at the UN for the UAE to release flight records, cargo manifests, and end-user certificates related to shipments to Chad and Sudan. Europe should also require mandatory disclosure for UAE-linked exports or re-exports involving European-made defence components, closing the loopholes exposed by the Bulgarian case.

European governments rhetorically support the UN’s Fact-Finding Mission and the Panel of Experts on Sudan under UN Security Council Resolution 1591 (2023), but have not pressed Abu Dhabi to cooperate with these UN investigations, exposing a gap between stated commitments and action.

Confronting the UAE and the RSF does not mean Europe should give a free pass to other regional powers fuelling the crisis. This includes Egypt, which is supporting the SAF and is a key destination for much of Sudan’s gold.

If Europe wants credibility when invoking international law in Ukraine, Gaza or elsewhere, it cannot ignore the atrocities happening in Sudan.

The European Council on Foreign Relations does not take collective positions. ECFR publications only represent the views of their individual authors.