(Photo credit: Reuters stringer)
The Cradle
NOV 8, 2026
UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh, a candidate for UN secretary-general, is accused of whitewashing Abu Dhabi’s role in the genocide in Sudan
A confidential UN report has found that the UAE hired Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia that has been accused of committing genocide in Sudan, The New York Times (NYT) reported on 5 November.
The NYT obtained a UN report submitted to the Security Council last week. It says Global Security Services Group, a security firm closely tied to the UAE government, sent Colombian mercenaries to Sudan via territory controlled by Emirati proxies in Libya and Somalia.
The mercenaries had been trained at two military bases in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, before being deployed to Sudan.
Global Security Services Group was founded by a senior official in the Emirati presidency. Its website describes the company as “a preferred security provider” for the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Presidential Affairs.
The UAE has also been accused of supplying the RSF with drones and weapons despite a UN arms embargo.
Emirati support for the RSF has helped fuel a conflict that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.
After taking control of El-Fasher, a city in southwestern Sudan’s Darfur region, RSF militiamen massacred some 2,000 civilians in October 2025.
Satellite imagery showed large pools of blood from the massacre, while videos showed RSF militants executing civilians, including a wounded man surrounded by blood-stained corpses at a Saudi-funded hospital.
The World Health Organization (WHO) cited reports claiming as many as 460 patients and staff were massacred at the hospital.
Colombian mercenaries known as the Desert Wolves reportedly flew drones, trained fighters, and provided artillery support to the RSF as it laid siege to El-Fasher before the massacre.
Sudan’s Ambassador to the UK, Babikir Elamin, told The Telegraph at the time that UAE support for the RSF militia was “the single most important element in prolonging and enabling this genocide.”
In a report to the UN Security Council, Sudan’s government said the RSF had also received British small-arms targeting systems and engines for military vehicles.
The confidential report was delivered to the Security Council as Lana Nusseibeh, the Emirate’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, seeks to become the UN’s next secretary-general.
Cambridge-educated Nusseibeh represented the UAE at the UN for over a decade.
During that time, she reportedly worked to deny reports that the UAE supported the RSF in Sudan.
“Lana Nusseibeh has spent over a decade in roles acting for the UAE government and repeatedly whitewashing their abusive role in Yemen and Sudan, presenting Abu Dhabi as a humanitarian actor while dismissing or obscuring mounting evidence of its role in fueling abuses,” stated Bruno Stagno Ugarte of Human Rights Watch.
In an email, Nusseibeh said that ending the “terrible conflict” in Sudan would be her priority as secretary-general.
The UAE has intervened in Sudan via the RSF to control its deep gold deposits and project power in strategic areas on the Red Sea coast.
Sudan’s civil war began in 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary RSF commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.
The war has devastated Sudan, leaving tens of thousands dead, displacing millions of people, and fueling a humanitarian catastrophe.
