Sudan militia implicated in war crimes used UK military equipment, UN told

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has used British military equipment, according to documents seen by the UN Security Council, the Guardian reported.

British-manufactured small-arms target systems and engines for armoured personnel carriers were recovered from combat zones in Sudan, it emerged on Tuesday.

The revelation is likely to increase scrutiny of British arms exports to the UAE, which is the RSF’s most significant patron.

Abu Dhabi supplies the RSF with weapons, funds and mercenaries, as well as political backing in negotiations to end the conflict.

The Guardian reported that the UN Security Council received information earlier this year alleging the UAE may have supplied British-made arms to the militia, which has committed war crimes and has been widely accused of genocide. 

Now two dossiers dated June 2024 and March 2025 and seen by the Security Council indicate that Britain continued to approve exports to the UAE for military equipment.

The dossiers were compiled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and present "evidence of UAE support" for the RSF.

They contained images of small-arms target devices recovered from former RSF sites in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and its twin city Omdurman.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "The UK has one of the most robust and transparent export control regimes in the world. All export licences are assessed for the risk of diversion to an undesirable end user or end use.

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"We expect all countries to comply with their obligations under existing UN sanctions regimes".

The images were reportedly marked with labels indicating the devices were made by Militec, a manufacturer based in Mid Glamorgan in Wales.

The UK has granted numerous licenses to Militec, along with 13 other companies, to export items to the UAE since 2013.

Militec declined a request for comment by the Guardian.

One photograph reportedly shows a data plate from an engine of a Nimr APC with a marking indicating it was made on 16 June 2016 by a UK subsidiary of Cummins, a US firm.

By 2016 the UK government knew the UAE had supplied Nimr APCs in violation of a UN arms embargo to militias in Libya and Somalia.

The Guardian quoted a Cummins spokesperson saying that the company "has a strong compliance culture" and a "strong policy against participating in any transaction – direct or indirect – with any arms embargoed destination without full and complete authorisation from the relevant governmental authorities.

"With respect to Sudan specifically, we reviewed all our past transactions and did not identify any military transactions where Sudan was indicated as the end-use destination."

Breakdown of ceasefire talks

The Guardian quoted Mike Lewis, a researcher and former member of the UN panel of experts on Sudan, who said: “UK and treaty law straightforwardly obliges the government not to authorise arms exports where there is a clear risk of diversion – or use in international crimes.

“Security Council investigators have documented in detail the UAE’s decade-long history of diverting arms to embargoed countries and to forces violating international humanitarian law.”

The news comes as Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) stormed the North Darfur city of el-Fasher, prompting fears of widespread killings and abuses, hours after ceasefire negotiations in Washington collapsed.

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There were hopes late last week that the US-sponsored talks could achieve some sort of breakthrough.

However, sources told Middle East Eye that the UAE refused to address the situation in el-Fasher, which has been under siege for over 500 days.

On Sunday morning, RSF fighters entered the city, where around 260,000 people have been trapped, capturing an army base and causing the defences to collapse.

The RSF claims it is in control of the city, describing its capture as a “decisive turning point”, after the paramilitaries had lost significant ground to the SAF in recent months.

So far, the SAF and its allied Joint Forces have not commented on the developments, despite videos emerging that purport to show the RSF detaining and lashing people in and around el-Fasher.

The storming of el-Fasher came just hours after ceasefire talks in Washington collapsed.

The negotiations, which were sponsored by the Trump administration, included the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who alongside the US make up the Quad of states tasked with addressing the two-year Sudan war.

Diplomatic sources told MEE that any discussions about el-Fasher were shut down by the UAE.