By Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Foreign weapons, military technology, fighters and logistical networks are helping sustain Sudan’s conflict and expanding the warring parties’ ability to strike deep into civilian areas, a United Nations fact-finding mission said in a report published on Thursday, warning that some attacks may amount to war crimes.
Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 following a power struggle between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule. The conflict has devastated the country, displaced more than 14 million people and created what the United Nations has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The U.N. mission said investigators found reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network involving individuals and entities in the United Arab Emirates, Chad, Libya and Somalia supplied the RSF with weapons, military equipment, logistics, training and foreign personnel.
The UAE, Chad, Libya and Somalia, the RSF and Sudan’s military did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
The UAE rejected allegations that it had provided military, logistical, financial or political support to the RSF, and Chad said it remained neutral in the war and denied knowledge of weapons transfers through its territory, according to the report.
The U.N. mission also said it obtained evidence that Colombian contractors played a significant role in operating and maintaining drone systems and other advanced weapons used by the RSF. It estimated the total number of Colombian contractors involved could approach 2,000 and said some were present during operations around al-Fashir in Darfur.
Colombia told investigators it opposed mercenarism and was taking steps to address the participation of Colombian nationals in foreign conflicts.
Mass killings of non‑Arab communities when the RSF captured al‑Fashir bore hallmarks that point to genocide, the U.N. mission said in a previous report in February.
In the past, the RSF has denied such abuses, saying the accounts have been manufactured by its enemies and making counter-accusations against them.
The mission said its investigation into external support for Sudan’s military was at an early stage but had found evidence that foreign-supplied combat drones and loitering munitions — which can hover over an area before striking a target — had expanded the army’s long-range strike capabilities.
It said some of those weapons were used in attacks on civilian locations, including Yabus Market in Blue Nile State.
DRONE WARFARE
The report found both sides committed serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law in their drone operations, with some conduct amounting to war crimes. Both sides have previously denied allegations of human rights abuses.
Expanded range, persistence and increasingly sophisticated capabilities enabled Sudan’s military and the RSF to strike far beyond immediate front lines, and evidence points to both sides carrying out drone attacks that killed civilians and hit hospitals, schools, markets and displacement sites.
More than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes between January and May 2026, according to figures cited by the report.
Between May and July 2026, repeated RSF drone attacks damaged electricity and fuel facilities in the North Kordofan capital of El Obeid, which was under SAF control as RSF pressure intensified in June this year. Strikes disrupted water supplies, healthcare, transport and other basic services in a city already under severe strain and partial siege, the mission said.
Among the cases highlighted in the report were SAF strikes on Ad-Da’ein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur that investigators said killed at least 70 people and left the facility non-functional.
The mission reiterated calls for enforcement of the Darfur arms embargo and urged the U.N. Security Council to extend it across all of Sudan.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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