The Brutal Civil War In Sudan: What's Happening And The UAE's Involvement?
Amid the ongoing war induced misery and human right violations in Sudan, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur, Sudan, after an 18-month siege, leaving tens of thousands of civilians trapped.
The development has grabbed global attention as reports suggest grave ethnic cleansing, allegedly by conducting door-to-door clearance operations. The RSF has now control over all major urban centers in Darfur, raising fears about more human right abuses.
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Videos, much of them are released by RSF itself as international journalists are not on the ground, shows many unarmed men being shot or lying dead, surrounded by the fighters.
The RSF has been accused of killing hundreds of unarmed civilians in ethnically motivated attacks. The group has also been accused of hunting down specific individuals, detaining civilians, and releasing them only after receiving ransom payments after its take over of a city. Satellite images and videos suggest systematic ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, and summary executions.
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It is alleged that the non-Arab groups like Masalit are being targeted killing and displacing thousands of families. Despite the international condemnations, nothing has been changed so far in the civil war that began in April 2023 as much of the world’s attention was on the Israeli atrocities in the war-ravaged Gaza.
Notably, the international public is now fingering at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the gulf nation has been accused of supporting the armed rebel group in the African nation. The emirate has been allegedly supplying arms to the RSF. A leaked UN report found evidence of UAE flights into Chad, circumventing detection, and its link with the RSF also dates back to the 2015 Yemen war, where the RSF fought for Saudi and UAE forces.
However, the UAE has been denying the allegations. The RSF was officially formed in 2013 from the remnants of the Janjaweed militia, deputed by Sudan’s former authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir to suppress a tribal rebellion in the Darfur region, leaving more than 300,000 killed.
Notably, the paramilitary force evolved from so-called Janjaweed militias turning against the Sudan government, breaking the civil war and power struggle between the army and the paramilitary group.
