From Sudan to Ukraine: Why Colombian mercenaries keep fighting foreign wars
From Sudan to Ukraine: Why Colombian mercenaries keep fighting foreign wars
A small convoy of ramshackle militarised vehicles gathers on the arid plains of Sudan, where a brutal civil war has ravaged the country. In the background, vallenato – traditional Colombian folk music – can be heard playing on a car radio belonging to Colombian mercenaries.
The presence of Colombian guns for hire in Sudan was thrust into the spotlight last week, after Sudan lodged a formal complaint with the UN Security Council, accusing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of financing and deploying Colombian mercenaries to fight in the conflict.
In the letter to the UN, Sudan’s military authorities said they had compiled “extensive evidence” of a “systematic campaign by the UAE to undermine the peace and security and the sovereignty of Sudan through the recruitment, financing and deployment of mercenaries to fight along with the Rapid Support Forces” (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting against the Sudanese military. Abu Dhabi has denied the allegations.
Last month, the Sudanese air force shot down an aircraft belonging to the UAE that was carrying 40 Colombian mercenaries, as well as a shipment of arms and equipment allegedly destined for use by the RSF.
The plane was shot down on 7 August as it approached an airport in the Darfur region controlled by the RSF. The mercenaries on board were reportedly killed. The UAE denied any involvement. The Colombian foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The participation of Colombian mercenaries in the conflict was confirmed by UN experts in an April report, but it is not new: hundreds of Colombian army veterans have been recruited by private security firms to fight in Sudan’s civil war.
Sudan has been mired in violent turmoil since April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between the national army and the paramilitary RSF erupted into open combat that has descended into a devastating civil war.
Casualties from the conflict are estimated to range anywhere between 20,000 to 150,000. The conflict has forced more than 14 million people from their homes, and pushed parts of the country to the brink of famine.
The ongoing war has been marked by widespread atrocities, mass killings, sexual violence and other abuses now under investigation by the International Criminal Court as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
High-demand Colombian mercenaries
The murky nature of the mercenary sector makes it hard to gauge the number of guns for hire believed to be fighting in Sudan.
According to an investigation by the Colombian outlet La Silla Vacía, up to 380 Colombian mercenaries have been deployed to Sudan to serve alongside the RSF since 2024.
The vast majority serve in a battalion known as the Desert Wolves, made up of four separate companies comprised entirely of retired Colombian military personnel.
“Colombians are excellent value, they have a lot of combat experience and they're very good warriors. They obey chains of command, have good discipline, and cost a quarter of what an American mercenary would cost,” Sean McFate, professor at the National Defense University in Washington DC, told Middle East Eye.
Colombian mercenaries have become one of the most sought-after commodities in modern irregular warfare. The country’s decades-long internal conflict against guerrillas and drug cartels has garnered a steady supply of combat-hardened, field-ready veterans.
For Colombia, the issue is domestic. Many ex-soldiers turn to mercenary work as a matter of survival. The country’s military pensions are modest – many veterans receive between $400 to $600 per month.
In contrast, mercenary work – often peddled via WhatsApp groups among veterans – can pay anywhere between $2,600 to $6,000 a month.
With few civilian job opportunities and frequent trouble reintegrating into the rhythms of civilian life, the allure of a foreign paycheck, even in a war zone, is hard to resist for many veterans.
“The world of mercenary work is seen internally as an opportunity. When a government does not create opportunities for former members of the armed forces, they have to find a way to meet their needs, so they see it as an alternative,” Jose Angel Espinosa, a former sergeant in the Colombian Army who now runs a veterans’ association, told MEE.
“They train us solely and exclusively for the purpose [of conflict] and do not provide us with any process for reintegration into society," Espinosa said. "We leave the force with a war mindset, and that is the only thing we have been trained for.”
Additionally, over 22,000 members of Colombia’s national security forces have voluntarily retired from service since President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, providing a steady supply of potential combatants to recruiters and warmongers.
“Over the last years, there has been a demoralisation among the security forces due to clashes between the government, the executive branch and the armed forces,” Katherin Galindo, a Colombian political analyst, said. "One of Petro's first acts upon taking office was to replace the entire military leadership, which clearly caused discontent among the security forces."
False recruitment
Those recruited to join the Desert Wolves were hired through a Colombian private security firm contracted by an Emirati company, Global Security Services Group.
The battalion’s operations were led by a retired Colombian army general based in Dubai.
Many recruits were misled about the nature of their work. Initially contracted to guard Emirati oil facilities or allegedly train troops, they were instead duped into fighting on the frontlines of Sudan’s civil war.
According to La Silla Vacia, Colombian mercenaries bound for Sudan typically followed a route starting in Abu Dhabi, from where they would fly to Benghazi in northern Libya. There, Libyan military contacts confiscated their passports and prevented their return until they completed the journey to join the RSF in Sudan.
As that pathway became more widely known – and ambushes or skirmishes more common – some began taking an alternative route: departing from Madrid to Ethiopia, then heading to the Somali port city of Bosaso before flying to Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, and finally landing in Nyala, an RSF-controlled city in Darfur.
“Things are ugly here, we're being held captive,” a Colombian soldier in Sudan said in an audio recording, according to La Silla Vacía.
“This is human trafficking. They hire us for one thing and then take us somewhere else to do something different," said another.
A history of involvement
The participation of Colombian mercenaries in international conflicts is no new development.
Most notably, about 20 Colombians participated in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. Hundreds of Colombians are also currently fighting in Ukraine, while several others served in Libya’s 2011 civil war, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Nor is this the first Emirati entanglement with Colombian mercenaries. In 2015, the UAE contracted hundreds to fight the Houthi group in Yemen.
“The UAE is a huge consumer of mercenary services. They have deep pockets and have geopolitical interests of becoming a regional hegemon in the Middle East and in parts of North Africa,” McFate explained.
“Mercenaries are a cheap way to realise those interests. You have demand from the RSF, you have money from the UAE, and you have supply from Colombia.”
'We leave the force with a war mindset, and that is the only thing we have been trained for'
- Jose Angel Espinosa, former sergeant
The presence of mercenaries undermines efforts to broker peace. Their use allows state actors, like the UAE, to maintain plausible deniability while sustaining conflict indirectly. It also makes accountability for war crimes murkier, as mercenaries often operate outside of national or international jurisdiction.
President Petro vowed to usher in a bill to prohibit the recruitment and involvement of Colombian mercenaries in foreign conflicts, and launched an investigation into the matter as a result of the Emirati plane being shot down last month.
He denounced the participation of Colombian mercenaries overseas and labelled the practice as “a trade in men turned into commodities to be killed”.
Nonetheless, such efforts – whether from Colombia, other states or international institutions – are unlikely to effectively tackle the industry.
“This law does not solve the root causes of why former soldiers are accepting these proposals, which are related to structural issues of compensation as well as the moral and psychological situation of our former soldiers, which this framework does not address,” Galindo said.
McFate added: “It's very hard for governments to track this stuff [and] the UN is frankly a joke when it comes to mercenaries. It's just a very hard industry to regulate.”