The Peacemaker’s War: How the UAE Fuels Genocide in Sudan

By: Sabah Al-Makki

Blood-Stained Diplomacy: The UAE’s Peace Rhetoric and Sudan’s Genocide
On April 15, 2025, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) released a statement to mark two years since the eruption of war in Sudan—an address draped in the language of peace and civilian transition. Delivered by Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE’s Assistant Minister for Political Affairs, the statement sought to position Abu Dhabi as a regional peacemaker. Yet, the timing was anything but coincidental. With the UAE currently facing legal proceedings at the International Court of Justice for complicity in genocide, this sudden invocation of peace appeared less a diplomatic overture and more a calculated attempt at reputational laundering. Beneath the polished rhetoric lies a brutal contradiction: the state seeking peace praise is the same one accused of fueling war.
Distorting the Narrative: Whitewashing a Militia, Undermining a Nation
Perhaps the most egregious feature of the UAE’s statement lies in its false equivalence—subtly yet deliberately equating Sudan’s sovereign national army with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, a paramilitary group internationally recognized for committing egregious atrocities by avoiding direct reference to the RSF militia. At the same time, insinuating shared culpability, the UAE blurred the distinction between a state defending its territorial integrity and a militia accused of orchestrating mass killings, rape, and the systematic targeting of civilians.
This is not ambiguity, it is erasure. Extensive investigations by the UN Security Council, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab have placed overwhelming blame for the carnage in Darfur, Khartoum, and beyond squarely on the RSF militia. To frame Sudan’s Armed Forces as morally indistinct from the very group perpetrating mass violence is not diplomacy—it is historical revisionism masquerading as neutrality.
Ammunition in Disguise: The Myth of Humanitarian Aid
In one of its most brazen distortions of reality, the United Arab Emirates has accused Sudan’s national army of using hunger as a weapon of war. This allegation, unsupported by credible evidence, collapses under the weight of international findings. In truth, it is the UAE-backed RSF militia that has systematically blocked humanitarian aid, looted warehouses, extorted relief convoys, and held entire populations hostage in conflict zones like Darfur and Kordofan. Reports from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Security Council’s Panel of Experts have documented these abuses precisely. Meanwhile, Sudan’s government has facilitated humanitarian access through Port Sudan and created logistical corridors to ensure food and medical supplies reach civilians.
Despite this, the UAE continues to cloak its destabilizing actions in the language of benevolence, touting a $600 million “humanitarian aid” contribution that has yet to be verified by any independent international agency. However, the covert transfer of weapons masquerading as aid has been verified.
In April 2025, a France24 investigation uncovered a clandestine arms pipeline that exposed the UAE’s actual role: Bulgarian-made mortar shells, officially procured by the Emirati military, were secretly rerouted to the RSF in direct violation of the European Union’s arms embargo. The evidence—satellite imagery, serial number verification, and logistical tracing—left no room for denial. Further, UN investigations revealed an Emirati-run military airbridge through Chad, delivering shipments of lethal weaponry to a militia accused of mass atrocities and ethnic cleansing.
These are not unfortunate lapses in oversight. They are calculated as state-sponsored investments in chaos. The UAE’s so-called aid effort is not an expression of humanitarian concern—it is the weaponization of relief, a cynical strategy to influence Sudan’s future through bloodshed disguised as generosity.
UAE’s Puppet Transitions: Civilian Rule or Foreign Design?
Among the most disingenuous elements of the UAE’s peace narrative is its aggressive promotion of what it calls a “civilian-led transition” in Sudan. While the phrase may evoke democratic ideals, the reality is far more cynical. This so-called transition is not the product of Sudanese consensus or constitutional will—it is a foreign-engineered project designed to marginalize Sudan’s sovereign institutions, dismantle its national army, and entrench geopolitical influence through a curated class of pliant political figures.
Since 2020, the UAE has hosted, funded, and sheltered a cohort of Sudanese civilian actors, many of whom have direct or tacit links to the RSF. These figures, conspicuously absent during the most harrowing moments of Sudan’s war, now resurface in Western capitals, speaking on panels and signing statements while enjoying the comfort and protection of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. They claim to represent Sudanese aspirations, yet their mandates are not drawn from the streets of Khartoum or the displaced camps of Darfur but from foreign sponsorship and diplomatic choreography.
This is not a democratic transition. It is political puppeteering. Former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and figures aligned with the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), “Taqqadum,” and “Samoud” have appeared in UAE-backed conferences from London, Addis Ababa , Kampala, to Nairobi—platforms that sideline Sudan’s official government and whitewash RSF atrocities under the banner of peacebuilding. These initiatives elevate unelected elites while excluding the national institutions holding the country together.
In effect, what is being advanced is not a civilian track, but a regime change track—one dressed in the language of reform but built on the foundations of foreign tutelage. Sudan’s future cannot and must not be dictated by external patrons or self-appointed exiles. Any legitimate transition must be forged within Sudan by its people with full respect for their sovereignty, sacrifices, and right to self-determination. Anything less is not peace—an imposition, an occupation in a tailored suit.

When a Repressive Monarchy Becomes a Democracy Evangelist
Perhaps the starkest hypocrisy in the UAE’s narrative lies in its attempt to cast itself as a model for democratic transition. This is a country where political parties are outlawed, dissent is criminalized, and power is neither earned nor contested but inherited through dynastic rule. The Emirates’ political system is built not on consent but on consolidation, often through coercion. Historical records reveal that between 1645 and 1966, the Al Nahyan family endured at least eight internal assassinations, each orchestrated to resolve succession disputes and consolidate control. The infamous “Day of Al-Wahila” in 1939—a violent purge within the Al Maktoum dynasty in Dubai—is a chilling reminder of how power has historically changed hands in this so-called beacon of stability. How can a regime that has never held a free election, never tolerated opposing views, and never been held accountable by its people presume to dictate democratic norms to a nation bleeding for its sovereignty amid one of the most brutally orchestrated wars in modern history?
It’s not just ironic—it’s an intentional insult to the dignity of those who fight for freedom. It’s a stark reminder that those with wealth and influence dare even rewrite the definition of justice in today’s world.
To hear such a regime offer democratic prescriptions to Sudan is more than ironic—it is offensive. Sudan’s democratic struggle is neither scripted abroad nor funded by petrodollars. It is organic, arduous, and deeply embedded in the national psyche. The Sudanese people have risen, time and again—in 1964, 1985, and most recently in 2019—to unseat military dictatorships through peaceful mass mobilization. Their path to democracy has been carved not through royal decrees but through sacrifice, protest, and popular will.
That the UAE now positions itself as both sponsor and supervisor of Sudan’s political transition is not just a distortion of reality—it is a betrayal of history. The historical backdrop of its relationship with Sudan makes the UAE’s interference all the more egregious. In the 1970s, Sudan was foundational in building the modern UAE and was the first country to recognize its independence. Sudanese doctors, engineers, teachers, and administrators were instrumental in shaping the UAE’s infrastructure, governance, and education systems. Many Emiratis received their education at Sudanese universities—often at no cost.
And how does the UAE repay that legacy? With blatant interference, political manipulation, and the fueling of a war machine that is devouring Sudan. It sends weapons to the RSF militia committing genocide, funds disinformation campaigns, and orchestrates open sabotage of Sudan’s sovereign state institutions.
A state that silences dissent criminalizes opinion and imprisons thinkers has no moral standing to lecture Sudan—or any nation—on democracy and freedom. Sudan’s independence was not handed down as a gift, nor was its dignity granted by others. It was earned through struggle and written in the blood and wounds of its people. As for the rulers of the UAE, they have never known accountability, never faced public scrutiny, and never dared to hear the voice of their people—they crushed it and built a regime of imposed silence atop its remains.
Conclusion: Let the Fig Leaf Fall from This Orchestrated Hypocrisy
Sudan does not need moral lectures from those whose hands are drenched in its blood, nor hollow peace declarations from the very actors who weaponize its executioners. Suppose the United Arab Emirates is truly serious about peace. In that case, it must begin by dismantling the very machinery of proxy war it has engineered: stop the flow of arms, withdraw from Sudan’s internal political affairs, and submit to credible, independent international scrutiny.
Anything less renders its statements nothing more than theatrical diplomacy—performances designed to obscure undeniable complicity behind polished prose. Behind the glitter of diplomatic language lies a brutal reality: a deliberate campaign of destruction financed in dollars and soaked in the blood of the Sudanese people.