{"id":484630,"date":"2025-10-09T03:31:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484630\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T03:31:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T03:31:17","slug":"war-is-a-business-the-colombian-mercenaries-training-sudans-child-fighters-to-go-and-get-killed-sudan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484630\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018War is a business\u2019: the Colombian mercenaries training Sudan\u2019s child fighters to \u2018go and get killed\u2019 | Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Colombian<\/a> mercenaries hardened by decades of jungle warfare, Sudan\u2019s conflict seemed slow at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Sudan, they spend the night sleeping \u2013 they don\u2019t even have security because everyone goes to bed,\u201d said Carlos, one of hundreds of Colombians hired to fight in the African country. \u201cColombians are different \u2013 we are used to a different kind of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when Carlos and his comrades reached the front, they pressed on through the darkness, driving deeper into enemy territory. \u201cAnd then there began to be much more fighting \u2013 and many more deaths,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Carlos arrived in Sudan<\/a> earlier this year, almost two years into the country\u2019s brutal civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).<\/p>\n

The conflict has plunged Sudan into one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history according to UN officials<\/a>: 150,000 people<\/a> have been killed, women and girls have been abducted and raped<\/a> and nearly 13 million<\/a> have been forced to flee their homes, in the world\u2019s worst displacement crisis.<\/p>\n

About 260,000 people remain trapped in El Fasher, North Darfur\u2019s capital and the army\u2019s last major stronghold in the Darfur region, which has been under siege for more than 500 days<\/a>. Aid has not entered the ravaged city for nearly 18 months<\/a> and children have been reduced to eating locusts and animal feed.<\/p>\n

Control map<\/a><\/p>\n

It is there that the Colombians, fighting for the RSF, have now been dispatched. \u201cWar is a business,\u201d said Carlos.<\/p>\n

The mercenaries\u2019 involvement first emerged last year, when an investigation by the Bogot\u00e1-based outlet La Silla Vac\u00eda<\/a> found that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted to fight \u2013 prompting an unprecedented apology by Colombia\u2019s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n

But the Colombians\u2019 role has gone beyond the battlefield: fighters have admitted to training Sudanese child soldiers<\/a> and have been pictured operating in Zamzam, the largest displacement camp<\/a> in Sudan. In April, the RSF tore through Zamzam, killing between 300 and 1,500 people \u2013 the UN called it one of the worst massacres<\/a> of the war.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Khamis Douda, a spokesman for the camp in Darfur, recently told the Sudan Tribune<\/a>: \u201cWe have witnessed with our own eyes a dual crime: the displacement of our people at the hands of the RSF militia, and now the occupation of the camp by foreign mercenaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates \u2013 long accused of arming and backing the RSF \u2013 has been blamed for hiring the mercenaries, via private security firms. The UAE has consistently denied these allegations.<\/p>\n

Unlike some Colombian whistleblowers who claim they were told they would be guarding oil facilities in the UAE, Carlos knew he was bound for war, though only that it was in Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His journey began with medical examinations in Bogot\u00e1, where he signed a $2,600-a-month contract. Afterwards he was flown via Europe to Ethiopia, and then to an Emirati military base in Bosaso, Somalia, he said. Later he was taken to Nyala in Sudan, a city now notorious as the hub for Colombian mercenaries.<\/p>\n

Carlos, who requested anonymity to speak freely, admitted that his first task was training Sudanese recruits, most of whom were children.<\/p>\n

Sudanese boys and men at a training camp with Colombian mercenaries in Sudan. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cThe camps had thousands of recruits, some adults, but mostly children \u2013 lots and lots of children,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are children who have never held a weapon. We taught them how to handle assault rifles and machine guns, RPGs. After that, they were sent to the front. We were training them to go and get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He describes training the children as \u201cawful and crazy\u201d but said that \u201cunfortunately that\u2019s how war is\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carlos\u2019s unit was eventually posted to the besieged El Fasher, the country\u2019s worst battleground. RSF fighters have built a 20-mile wall around the city\u2019s boundaries<\/a>, and executed those trying to flee.<\/p>\n

\"FootageFootage shared by Colombian mercenary shows mission in Sudan \u2013 video <\/p>\n

Carlos shared photos and videos \u2013 some passed on by his comrades \u2013 with La Silla Vac\u00eda and the Guardian, showing Colombian mercenaries in Sudan. One picture shows trainees lying prone on the ground, some holding rifles. Two teenagers pose for the camera, making a victory sign with their fingers.<\/p>\n

In one video, a man can be seen shooting a machine gun through a hole in the wall of a ruined apartment. In a clip shared by a different Colombian mercenary, a man loads and fires a mortar at a location geolocated in the outskirts of El Fasher.<\/p>\n

In another video, filmed amid heavy gunfire, mercenaries with thick Colombian accents discuss a colleague who appears to have been wounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s dead, because we couldn\u2019t see him,\u201d one says in Spanish. \u201cWho else is going to help get him out?\u201d<\/p>\n

The mercenary points to a group of Sudanese fighters milling around nearby. \u201cYou, you, you. You can help us here, support these men. We\u2019re going to retreat quietly, to get this guy out,\u201d he says, before the group carry a wounded man past houses peppered with bullet holes.<\/p>\n

Colombia\u2019s own decades-long civil conflict has created a surplus of experienced fighters, many of whom received training from the US army, and the country is believed to be one of the largest exporters of mercenaries.<\/p>\n

Screengrab from RSF (official X account for Rapid Support Forces) video, soldiers on their way to El Fasher, Darfur, Sudan. Photograph: X<\/p>\n

\u201cColombia has more than a half-century of history of active conflict. Its soldiers have not only been trained very well, but have been in the field, in very difficult situations, and so are combat ready,\u201d says Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries, says the use of Colombian mercenaries escalated around the 2010s, when ex-combatants were paid to guard oil infrastructure in the UAE. Their role evolved during the war in Yemen. \u201cThe UAE sent a lot of Colombian mercenaries to go and kill the Houthi [rebels] and they were successful in that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Since then, Colombian soldiers of fortune have appeared regularly in the headlines: in July 2021 18 Colombian gunmen were among the team who assassinated Haiti\u2019s President Jovenel Mo\u00efse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Colombian ex-military personnel have also fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and now Ukraine. In November of last year, Colombia\u2019s foreign minister said that approximately 500 of his countrymen<\/a> had travelled to fight against Russian forces.<\/p>\n

Carlos is one of those, having served two years with the Ukrainian troops. \u201cUkraine was becoming more complicated, there were more casualties, more enemy advances. So I left and took on this mercenary job in Africa instead,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew absolutely nothing about it \u2013 only that it was in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

McFate says mercenaries give countries \u201cgood plausible deniability\u201d, in cases where they want to skirt international law or have a strategy of human rights violations. \u201cWhen they get captured or killed, you disavow them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has described mercenarism as a \u201ctrade in men turned into commodities to kill\u201d and has pledged to ban the business<\/a>. But former fighters often struggle to reintegrate into Colombian society, and the cash incentives they are offered mean the business is unlikely to end soon.<\/p>\n

Both Dickinson and McFate argued that the problem also lay with Colombia\u2019s military system: most professional soldiers are forced to retire around 40, with low pensions and few retraining options.<\/p>\n

Footage shared by a Colombian mercenary operating in El Fasher, Sudan. Photograph: The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you enter at 18 and work 20 years, you\u2019re not even 40 when you retire. You have 15, 20 years left of active duty time,\u201d said Dickinson. \u201cThe support structure for the Colombian retired military is deficient, particularly compared to the offer that\u2019s on the table from these organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dickinson also warns that the \u201cecosystem of private defence companies\u201d is no longer limiting itself to retired soldiers. \u201cDefence companies are increasingly recruiting those on active duty, from places where soldiers have a really hard time in difficult conditions,\u201d said Dickinson. \u201cThey send WhatsApp pamphlets offering thousands of dollars a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the military, this is an \u201cenormous loss\u201d, she said. \u201cThe Colombian government trains them to a very high level \u2013 and then they are essentially stolen by the private defence industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos is one of those who left the armed forces after just over five years of service. He has also left Sudan, blaming issues with payment. He said 30 men quit alongside him, but \u201cat the same time, flights with 30 more were arriving\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mercenaries almost disappeared from the world\u2019s battlefields for most of the 20th century, but the business was growing fast again, said McFate. \u201cIt\u2019s the world\u2019s oldest profession,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re returning to something medieval, where the super-rich can become like superpowers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlos took a similarly dark view of his trade. \u201cThis isn\u2019t an honest job; it\u2019s not a legal job. But you go for money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This article was written in collaboration with La Silla Vac\u00eda.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Colombian mercenaries hardened by decades of jungle warfare, Sudan\u2019s conflict seemed slow at first. \u201cIn Sudan, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-484630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115342101083851032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}