Britain is allowing another Gaza to unfold in Sudan

I first came across Minni Minnawi two decades ago. He was then a rebel leader trying to defend the people of Darfur against Janjaweed militias backed by the Sudanese government in Khartoum.

Last week, I encountered Minnawi again in Port Sudan, which became a temporary base for de-facto government represented by the Sudanese Armed Forces and its allies after the fall of Khartoum. But he is no longer a rebel: as governor of Darfur, he is firmly on the side of Port Sudan's 'the government of hope'.

His enemy, however, remains unchanged. Minnawi continues the struggle against the same Janjaweed fighters who were his deadly opponents two decades ago. 

After the Darfur conflict simmered down, in 2013, former president Omar al-Bashir's government attempted to institutionalise the Janjaweed by turning them into a paramilitary group named the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and integrating them into the state apparatus.

In 2017, the Sudanese parliament passed a draft law affiliating the RSF with the army. But the marriage of convenience between the RSF and the state did not last. After al-Bashir was ousted following popular protests in 2019, a joint military-civilian government was formed, in an attempt to chart a new course for Sudan. Two years later, however, that government also fell. 

The 2021 coup was led by Sudanese army commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. In the ensuing months, a power struggle erupted between the two men over the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese military - and it exploded into open conflict in April 2023. A few months after the war broke out, al-Burhan issued a decree to dissolve the RSF in September.

But by then the RSF has evolved into a stronger, recalibrated and much better armed group, with a powerful and affluent international sponsor in the United Arab Emirates.

Sudan has been convulsed by a proxy war ever since. At least 150,000 Sudanese people, probably more, have been killed, while an estimated 12 million have been forced to flee their homes.

Reign of terror

Most observers view the conflict as a battle for power and wealth between two rivals as bad as each other. But on the basis of what I saw and heard during a week’s travel through Sudan, I believe this analysis urgently needs to be challenged.

The RSF presents itself as a supporter of secular democracy. Last summer, they formed the Sudan Founding Alliance (Ta'sis) with some civilian political actors including Abdelaziz al-Hilu, the leader of one of the fragments of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A-North) and a staunch advocate of a secular Sudanese state.

However, RSF's conduct on the ground makes utter nonsense of these protestations. 

The paramilitary group's fighters stand accused of mass murder, kidnapping, gang rape, sexual slavery, torture and ethnic cleansing. They film and publish online some of their brutalities. They loot and destroy Sudan’s cultural heritage, as witnessed at the wrecked Sudanese National Museum in Khartoum.

They target their enemies on an ethnic or tribal basis and I was told insult women as “faloul” (roughly translating as “old regime”) before raping them.

British ministers do not just refuse to condemn the UAE's involvement in Sudan; they can't even bring themselves to name the Emirates in this context

There are thus compelling grounds to believe that RSF fighters are committing genocide. They steal, kill and institute a reign of terror - which explains the mass exodus of civilians from Khartoum after the RSF took the capital. 

Over dinner in Omdurman last week, Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, the Sudanese army's second-in-command, compared the RSF to Genghis Khan’s Mongul army, which spread terror across the Asian continent in the Middle Ages. It is a plausible comparison.

The Sudanese army has also been accused of war crimes over allegedly indiscriminate air strikes in urban areas, but not on the same scale as the RSF, which recently took el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in a bloody rampage through western Sudan.

The videos of its atrocities, posted to social media, are enough to give you nightmares. The UN now calls Sudan one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

And these atrocities are being led by the same people behind the slaughter in Darfur two decades ago. Reportedly among the ranks of the RSF are mercenaries from neighbouring states, including Chad, Mali and Libya. Survivors told me that many of their tormentors spoke languages they could not understand. 

'Silence was bought'

Two decades ago, Hemedti was one of the Janjaweed warlords carrying out atrocities in Darfur. As military chief of the RSF, he is now laying waste not just to Darfur, but to all of Sudan. 

In the eyes of many Sudanese people, this is worse than random violence. Atta says Hemedti’s RSF fighters are targeting local people “according to ethnicity and race”, in a programme of ethnic displacement and racial engineering.

However, it should be made clear that this remains to be a war over resources that has no regard for civilian lives.

Calling the RSF “a tool in the hands of the Emirates”, Atta condemned the global silence on the horrors facing Sudan. 

“This silence was bought by the power of the UAE money,” Atta said. He singled out Britain - the former colonial power in Sudan, which also serves as penholder at the United Nations, enabling it to lead the Security Council’s activities on the country - for special criticism. It is easy to see why.

In June 2024, the Guardian reported that “UK government officials” were attempting “to suppress criticism of the United Arab Emirates and its alleged role in supplying arms to a notorious militia waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan” - claims denied by the Foreign Office. 

Why is the UAE involved in Sudan’s bloody civil war?

Read More »

There are also suggestions that British military equipment has ended up in RSF hands. The Campaign Against Arms Trade recently reported that Britain has allowed a surge in arms sales to the UAE, despite knowing that the UAE has been diverting military equipment to the RSF, with UK-made engines found in armoured personnel carriers used by the group’s fighters. 

In response to allegations of complicity in an ongoing genocide in Darfur, British ministers do not just refuse to condemn the UAE’s involvement in Sudan; they can’t even bring themselves to name the Emirates in this context, as shown by an examination of parliamentary debates.

It’s easy to guess why not. The UAE is Britain’s largest trading partner in the Middle East, and a massive investor in Britain, most famously through the Manchester City football club.

Full disclosure: during our trip to Sudan, Middle East Eye was accompanied by guides from  who were sympathetic to the Sudanese government and had ready access to the Sudanese military.  

We did not travel through rebel-held areas. We approached the UAE embassy in London, but received no response. 

In the meantime, as evidence mounts of the RSF’s barbarous attacks on civilians and cultural institutions, a clearer picture is emerging of an ongoing genocide, backed by the UAE and tacitly enabled by the UK. The comparisons with Gaza are chilling. 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.