Darfur Express: EU’s Complicity, UAE Petro-Dollars, and the Road to Genocide in Sudan

By Sabah Al-Makki

From Dubai to Darfur, through Libyan ports and under the watch of the European Union, the vessel Aya 1 charted a course that carried more than cargo. Laden with Emirati armored vehicles and munitions, its passage across the Mediterranean told the story of a collapsing embargo, a flourishing smuggling empire, and Europe’s descent from silence into complicity. The Italian daily Il Foglio uncovered this shadowy trade in its investigation “Darfur Express,” revealing how what was framed as neutrality became, in practice, a license for atrocity, granting the tools of genocide safe passage to Sudan.

The Aerial Bridge: How Abu Dhabi Sustains a Proxy War in Sudan
When Sudan’s war reignited two years ago, one constant emerged: the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to independent analysts and intelligence sources, Abu Dhabi has acted as the covert sponsor of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), utilizing Libya as its staging ground, and seeking to tighten its grip on the smuggling networks that traverse the clandestine triangle of Sudan, Libya, and Egypt.

Flights departing from Ras al-Khaimah and Al-Ain in the UAE routinely land in Benghazi and Kufra, strongholds of Khalifa Haftar. From there, convoys of vehicles and ammunition push south across the Sahara, reinforcing RSF militia camps deep inside Sudan. “This air bridge is not occasional; it operates almost daily,” said researcher Rich Tedd, who has tracked Gulf-to-Africa supply routes for years.

One diplomat familiar with the transfers confirmed that armored pickup trucks, the RSF’s signature weapon, arrive in the thousands, with shipments coming in roughly every three weeks. Together, the evidence points to a sustained and organized supply chain, one that has transformed Libya’s desert into a conduit of weapons and Sudan’s skies into an extension of war.

The Voyage of Deception: From Jebel Ali to Darfur
On July 1, 2025, the container ship Aya 1 left Dubai’s Jebel Ali port flying the Panamanian flag. The official manifests listed the cargo as cosmetics, cigarettes, and electronic goods, with a declared route to northern Europe.

According to U.S. intelligence assessments later obtained by investigators, the ship in fact carried a far different load: hundreds of armored Toyota Land Cruiser 79 and V8 models, Hilux trucks, and large quantities of ammunition. The cargo was routed not to Europe but to Benghazi, where Libyan factions allied with the UAE were positioned to receive and forward the shipments into Sudan for the RSF militia. Analysts say consignments of this scale have had a direct impact on the course of the war, reinforcing RSF militia capabilities and contributing to mass violence in Darfur.

The vessel’s passage through the Mediterranean, via Crete, Astakos, Misrata, Benghazi, and Tobruk, unfolded in full view of European authorities. On August 26, 2025, the Italian daily Il Foglio published its investigation, “Darfur Express,” detailing how the UN arms embargo had collapsed in practice and how European inaction had enabled the transfer of weapons. The report concluded that silence from the EU functioned less as neutrality than as tacit approval, allowing the Emirati shipments to reach Darfur, where they fueled one of the most devastating phases of the conflict.

Aya 1: A Ship with Two Faces
On July 22, 2025, two European frigates operating under the EU’s Operation IRINI intercepted the vessel Aya 1 off the coast of Crete, with assistance from the Greek frigate Themistoklis and the Italian frigate Francesco Morosini.

Operation IRINI had been established to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya. The boarding confirmed what intelligence services had long suspected: the ship was not carrying civilian goods, but a concealed consignment of weapons and military vehicles. At that moment, European authorities held direct evidence of embargo violations. Yet rather than seize the vessel, they chose to look the other way. The Aya 1 was diverted to the Greek port of Astakos, where it remained for four days. It was then released following a round of diplomatic bargaining that involved Athens, Brussels, Tripoli, and the Abu Dhabi regime. Legal obligations under the embargo were effectively hollowed out by political calculations, allowing the shipment to continue its journey.

Four Days of EU Silence and Complicity
Behind closed doors, Athens found itself under opposing pressures: Washington urging strict enforcement of the embargo, and Khalifa Haftar threatening to open migration routes toward Crete if the vessel was held. The result was not silence but a negotiated arrangement that allowed the shipment to proceed.

According to officials briefed on the process, the deal amounted to three steps:
• The violation was formally recorded and transmitted to the UN Panel of Experts on Libya.
• The ship was released under the pretext of “humanitarian and commercial exemptions.”
• To lend a semblance of legality, the vessel was routed through Misrata, territory of the internationally recognized Tripoli government, before resuming its eastward journey to Benghazi.

What emerged was not enforcement but accommodation. Operation IRINI, established to uphold international law, became the instrument that legitimized its breach. By authorizing rather than intercepting the shipment, the EU shifted from observer to participant, turning an arms embargo into a license for weapons transfers that would later fuel atrocities in Sudan.

The Misrata “Political Tip”: Et tu, Dbeibah?
On August 4, 2025, the Aya 1 docked in Misrata and offloaded part of its cargo. Video evidence later verified by investigators showed convoys of trucks transporting dozens of Toyota Land Cruisers westward toward Tripoli.

According to Il Foglio, one diplomat described the delivery as “a kind of tip, perhaps even a reward from the UAE to Abdulhamid Dbeibah, designed to ensure smooth passage for the remainder of the shipment.”

The gesture was more than logistical. Analysts noted that a portion of the vehicles was redistributed to forces loyal to Tripoli’s Government of National Unity, particularly the 111th Brigade, commanded by Abdel Zamad Zoubi, the deputy defense minister. The rest of the consignment was released to the east. Satellite imagery later confirmed additional unloading operations in Benghazi and Tobruk.

From there, the convoys pushed across desert routes. By mid-August, verified footage documented more than 100 Hilux trucks heading toward Nyala in South Darfur. Within weeks, those identical vehicles were implicated in the Zamzam camp massacre, where approximately 1,500 displaced civilians were slaughtered.

The Merchant of Chaos
Behind the Aya 1 voyage stands Libyan businessman Ahmed Jadallah, also known as Ahmed al-Lushaybi. Through a network of companies in Dubai and Benghazi, Jadallah controls UDS Shipping, the operator of the vessel. Jadallah’s record is not clean. He was previously detained in Dubai between 2016 and 2018 over alleged illicit dealings, but was later rehabilitated under pressure from Khalifa Haftar. Since then, he has emerged as the Haftar family’s economic fixer. Today, he holds a significant role at the Bank of Commerce and Development in Benghazi, which is run by Khalifa Haftar’s son, Saddam.

The Letter of Shame: The EU’s Signature on Betrayal
The most damning evidence did not come from video footage or satellite images, but from an official document bearing the EU’s own signature.

A letter issued under the authority of Rear Admiral Valentino Rinaldi, Commander of the EU’s Operation IRINI, was addressed to UDS Shipping in Dubai, with copies sent to the Ukrainian captain of Aya 1, Antoniuk Volodymyr, and Libyan businessman Ahmed Jadallah. In it, the EU naval mission wrote:

“I would like to express my gratitude for the kind cooperation you have provided to Operation IRINI.
I kindly ask you to direct the vessel Aya 1 to Tripoli port for unloading under the supervision of the Libyan Government of National Unity.
Operation IRINI will ensure the vessel’s immediate release.”

This was not the EU as a neutral observer, but the EU in writing as a facilitator. The EU’s own operation recorded itself thanking a company implicated in embargo violations, directing the vessel’s movements, and promising its release. For critics, it was a moment of ethical collapse: the EU moving from enforcer of international law to underwriter of its breach, placing its own signature on the passage of weapons that would later be used in Darfur.

Beyond the Weapons: The Deeper Trade
The Aya 1 was not only carrying arms. Satellite imagery from March showed the vessel docked in Tobruk alongside eleven fuel tankers, lined up as if bearing silent witness to another form of trafficking: illicit fuel. The paradox was stark. How could a country that is a net importer of diesel suddenly emerge as an exporter? And how could a container ship disguise itself as a fuel carrier?

The answer lay in the method. Flexible bladders hidden inside shipping containers functioned as improvised tanks, black rubber veins pumping contraband across the desert under the cover of legitimate trade. U.S. monitoring had repeatedly picked up these activities, yet little was said until the shipments included weapons and vehicles. Fuel smuggling alone, it seemed, did not warrant public condemnation. Critics call that omission a double failure, one that underestimated both the scale of the trade and its eventual consequences.

But the reality extends far beyond a single ship. What emerges is an entire system: Abu Dhabi regime financing and supplying, Libyan ports providing safe passage, Europe offering political cover, and traffickers elevated to the status of “legitimate businessmen,” even receiving letters of official gratitude for their “cooperation.” The picture is now clear. From sea to desert, from weapons to fuel, a shadow economy has taken root, an empire of contraband where Emirati arms, laundered through European oversight and Libyan transit, translate into massacres written in blood on Sudanese soil.

Europe Between Law, Ethics, and Abu Dhabi’s Regime Petro-Dollar Diplomacy
The Aya 1 was more than a ship; it became a mirror reflecting an international system willing to trade principles for profit and justice for expediency. From Jebel Ali, it sailed laden with contraband, through Crete under the watch of the EU that looked away, into Misrata, where part of its cargo was distributed as “a political tip”, and onward through Benghazi and Tobruk before convoys crossed the desert and reached Darfur, where the shipments translated into mass graves.

The victims were Sudanese, the blood Sudanese. But the complicity bore a distinctly European signature. The EU chose to hide behind “exceptions” rather than uphold the law; to sell its moral obligations on the cheap in diplomatic bargaining; and to cloak its silence in procedure instead of speaking a word of justice.

The “Darfur Express” is not a headline, but a record. It stands as documentary evidence that the EU, fully aware and by deliberate choice, stamped the ticket that enabled atrocity. Abu Dhabi, with its petro-dollar diplomacy and blood-stained networks, played the role of financier and broker. Europe, by word and by deed, provided the cover.

Abu Dhabi’s Regime: The Ahriman of Our Age
The Aya 1 affair will not be the last. The regime in Abu Dhabi, enabled by Western partnerships, has become the custodian of mass graves and the region’s most reliable broker of chaos. The evidence is overwhelming: investigative reports, UN expert panel findings, and a steady stream of testimonies point to the same conclusion, Abu Dhabi Regime is implicated not only in atrocities in Sudan, but also in Syria, Yemen, Gaza, Somalia, Libya, other countries in the Middle East and across Africa, where loyalty is bought with money and agendas are driven by oil.

With every coup born out of desert sands, every militia reconstituted from the ashes of disorder, and every river of blood flowing in Sudan, Yemen, or elsewhere, one patron recurs with chilling regularity: the United Arab Emirates. Even its very name exposes its hollowness. An “emirate” is simply the jurisdiction of an emir, a prince. It is not a name, but a title. The state has no identity beyond its rulers. It is an administrative construct stitched together with oil and dollars. A state without a name is a state without a soul, and when the mask falls, the face must be named for what it truly is.

History offers its analogies: ancient Egypt warned of Seth, the god of chaos and blood; Mesopotamia of Lamashtu, devourer of the innocent; Persia of Ahriman, embodiment of cosmic evil; and the Norse of Loki, the deceiver. In our time, it is Abu Dhabi’s regime that plays this role, a shadow empire financing death, dressing warlords in the attire of statesmen, and branding massacres as “mediation.”

A country without a name of its own, defined only as “the jurisdiction of emirs,” can claim an identity only through its actions. By those deeds, it has earned the darkest of titles. It has become the Ahriman of this age, the Seth of Arabia, the hand that signs contracts in blood and converts destruction into policy. And through those actions, it has chosen its proper name: not a union of states, but a union of shadows, a patron of militias, a broker of chaos, and the custodian of graves. In Darfur, those shadows took human form, and the cost is measured in mass graves, graves that history will forever mark with the EU’s complicity and the signature of Abu Dhabi’s regime.

And Finally… From Sudan, a Reckoning for the Tyrants of Abu Dhabi’s Regime
You have failed, and you will fail, to conquer Sudan. This war is not only about gold, Red Sea corridors, or access routes into Africa; it is about fertile land and the sources of clean water. It is about your own looming crisis. Even your president has conceded that by 2051, the Emirates must secure food independence or face a future of scarcity in both food and water. That is why you wage this war by proxy, not for peace, not for stability, but for your survival, at Sudan’s expense.

We have lost count of how many countries the Abu Dhabi regime has rallied against Sudan. From mercenaries to militias, from bought alliances to proxy fighters, the number now exceeds fifteen countries, and still you have failed.

History is unambiguous: in every age, in every faith and philosophy, empires built on bones and blood have crumbled. Darkness never triumphs, no matter how high it rises.

The rulers of Abu Dhabi’s empire of dust and mirage would do well to remember: no despot is invincible. Not the people of ‘Ad, who thought themselves unshakable; not Thamud, who carved their dwellings into stone; not Pharaoh, who claimed divinity before being swallowed by the sea; and not Nimrod, who defied the heavens and claimed godhood before the prophet Abraham, only to be undone by the smallest of creatures. Power may be prolonged, but it is never permanent. When justice comes, it comes swiftly, and tyrants are never spared.

Your reign rests on corruption, on the spilling of blood, on the devastation of land and lineage. You may purchase silence with petro-dollars and cloak atrocities with diplomacy, but the reckoning cannot be deferred forever. Every tyrant falls, and when they do, they fall utterly.

The lesson of history, and of the universe itself, is unmistakable: do as you will, but the law of consequence is inexorable. As you have sown, so shall you reap. And when the record of this age is written, Abu Dhabi will not be remembered as an emirate of princes, but as a tyranny that fell, as all tyrannies fall.