HRW: Colombian Contractors Transited UAE Bases Before Fighting with Sudan’s RSF

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that Colombian private military contractors apparently hired by a UAE-based security company passed through military facilities in the United Arab Emirates before deploying to Sudan to fight alongside the Rapid Support Forces, including in El Fasher during atrocities that U.N. investigators later said bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”

The findings, published in an 83-page report dated May 25, add new pressure on the UAE over longstanding allegations that it has provided military support to the RSF, the powerful paramilitary force fighting Sudan’s army. The UAE has denied backing the RSF and says its role in Sudan is humanitarian.

Why the new evidence matters is not just the question of foreign recruitment. Human Rights Watch said it verified the presence of Spanish-speaking contractors in El Fasher in late October 2025, when residents reported widespread killings, rape, starvation and the targeting of people with disabilities as RSF forces captured the city. In February 2026, the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan said those events bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”

“The recruitment of Colombian private military contractors adds to a growing body of evidence that the UAE provides military support to the Rapid Support Forces, which have repeatedly carried out heinous atrocities in Sudan,” Mausi Segun, Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division executive director, said in a statement. “Governments should publicly demand that the UAE stop supplying weapons, equipment, personnel, and other military support to the Rapid Support Forces.”

Human Rights Watch said its report was based on interviews with two Colombian contractors who deployed to Sudan, one former employee of the Abu Dhabi-based Global Security Services Group, or GSSG, eight El Fasher residents and seven other sources, including former Colombian military officers. The group said it also reviewed corporate records and official documents and geolocated photos and videos posted online, including by contractors themselves.

According to the report, GSSG hired hundreds of Colombian contractors beginning in 2024 and sent them to Sudan to support the RSF in its war against the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF. Human Rights Watch said recruits transited through a UAE military base in Ghiyathi and an apparent military facility in Al Wathba, both in Abu Dhabi emirate.

One Colombian contractor told researchers that when the men entered the UAE, “They didn’t stamp our passports.”

Human Rights Watch said the first public evidence of Colombians in Sudan emerged in November 2024, when videos showed a convoy intercepted after entering Sudan from Libya. As additional corroboration, the group noted that Bulgarian-made 81 mm shells found with Colombians had previously been reported by France 24 as diverted from UAE armed forces stocks.

The report identifies GSSG as the company behind the recruitment effort and cites prior reporting by The Sentry, an investigative organization, linking the company to senior UAE figures, including founder Ahmed Mohammed al-Humairi and businessman Mohamed Hamdan al-Zaabi. Human Rights Watch said it sent summaries of its findings to GSSG, UAE authorities and others implicated and received no response.

On the ground in Darfur, the report goes further than earlier public accounts. Human Rights Watch said it geolocated videos showing Spanish-speaking contractors apparently fighting in El Fasher during the RSF takeover in late October 2025. It also said six witnesses reported seeing “white” foreign fighters at the site of mass RSF killings, wearing the same protective gear visible in the videos, including helmets, body armor and kneepads.

The group also said one Colombian contractor described training RSF recruits in camps around Nyala in April 2025, and said many of those recruits were “young children.” Human Rights Watch cited Colombian outlet La Silla Vacía as also reporting that some contractors trained RSF child soldiers.

That allegation carries separate legal significance. International law prohibits the recruitment or use of children in armed conflict, and using children younger than 15 is a war crime. Human Rights Watch noted that the U.N. secretary-general verified 16 cases of child recruitment by the RSF in 2024 and placed the group on the U.N.’s “list of shame” for grave violations against children in conflict.

Human Rights Watch called for investigations by the U.N. Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Sudan and urged governments, the European Union and the African Union to consider targeted sanctions against those involved. That push comes as some official action is already underway: The U.S. Treasury sanctioned a network in December 2025 for recruiting fighters for the RSF and expanded those sanctions in April 2026.

Sudan’s war began on April 15, 2023, when fighting broke out between the SAF and the RSF. The RSF has repeatedly been accused of atrocities in Darfur, and the U.S. State Department said in January 2025 that RSF members and allied militias had committed genocide there. Human Rights Watch’s report narrows the focus to a specific pipeline of foreign fighters and their apparent transit through UAE military sites, sharpening calls for accountability over who enabled their deployment.