{"id":53088,"date":"2025-08-19T21:22:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T18:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/?p=53088"},"modified":"2025-08-19T21:25:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T18:25:54","slug":"colombian-mercenaries-in-darfur-foreign-flames-in-a-proxy-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/19\/colombian-mercenaries-in-darfur-foreign-flames-in-a-proxy-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombian Mercenaries in Darfur: Foreign Flames in a Proxy War"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sabah al-Makki<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sudan\u2019s war is no longer an internal affair, as some insist, but a full-fledged foreign invasion. Footage retrieved from the phone of a slain Colombian mercenary in Darfur reveals the stark reality: foreign fighters battling alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), under Emirati supervision, financing, and arms supply. It is a new chapter in the globalization of blood, where Sudan\u2019s soil becomes a testing ground for mercenaries imported from across the oceans.<\/p>\n

From Bogot\u00e1 to Abu Dhabi\u2026 to Darfur<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Colombians\u2019 relationship with the UAE is not new. For years, private security firms in Abu Dhabi have recruited hundreds of demobilized Colombian soldiers, lured by lucrative salaries to deploy their combat experience in other people\u2019s wars. They were spotted in Yemen, Libya, and Somalia. Now they are in El-Fasher, Darfur\u2019s last government stronghold.<\/p>\n

These men are not mere hired guns but strategic tools in what researcher Andreas Krieg has called the UAE\u2019s \u201cdogs of war\u201d\u2014mercenaries used to project Emirati influence far beyond its borders.<\/p>\n

A leaked Spanish-language operations document from El-Fasher, dated December 2024, details orders for the Colombian \u201cDesert Wolves Battalion.\u201d It outlines the chain of command, types of munitions, and shockingly, the planned use of white phosphorus\u2014an internationally restricted weapon in populated areas. For mercenaries with no legal status to incorporate such weapons into operational plans amounts to a textbook war crime.<\/p>\n

Proxy Warfare, Emirati Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is hardly the first time wars have been outsourced to mercenaries. A 2022 report by the Foreign Policy Research Institute describes how the UAE transformed from a small state reliant on U.S. protection into an assertive power projecting force through \u201cimported human ammunition.\u201d In Yemen, it deployed hundreds of Colombians to the frontlines. In Libya, it financed parallel armed units. In Somalia, it embedded mercenaries in Bosaso under the guise of a \u201ccoast guard.\u201d Sudan is merely the newest stop on this trajectory.<\/p>\n

Why Colombians? They are cheaper than Western contractors, seasoned in guerrilla and urban warfare after decades of battling the FARC, and politically disposable. Using them allows Abu Dhabi plausible deniability: the war appears local, even as it is waged by a transcontinental network.<\/p>\n

The Architect of the Network<\/strong><\/p>\n

The name of retired Colombian colonel \u00c1lvaro Quijano stands out as a central coordinator. According to Colombian investigative reports, Quijano funneled hundreds of ex-soldiers under fictitious security contracts from Bogot\u00e1 to Abu Dhabi, then on to Libya and Darfur. He operates through front security firms in Colombia and the UAE, allegedly backed by influential Emirati figures such as Mohammed Hamdan al-Zaabi. Testimonies from families of slain mercenaries describe mass recruitment, passport confiscation, and threats that forced fighters to remain in Sudan.<\/p>\n

From Foreign Incursion to International Crime<\/strong><\/p>\n

The evidence is overwhelming:<\/p>\n

Video recordings in Spanish from inside Sudanese battlefields.<\/p>\n

Secret operations orders for the \u201cDesert Wolves\u201d signed in El-Fasher.<\/p>\n

Explicit instructions to deploy white phosphorus in populated zones.<\/p>\n

A logistical trail running Bogot\u00e1\u2013Abu Dhabi\u2013Libya\u2013Darfur.<\/p>\n

Accounts of child soldiers being trained by mercenaries near Nyala.<\/p>\n

This is no civil war. It is the anatomy of a foreign invasion. The UAE\u2014acting as financier, supplier, and operator\u2014faces responsibility not only for war crimes and crimes against humanity but potentially for genocide.<\/p>\n

El-Fasher: Gateway to Sudanese Sovereignty<\/strong><\/p>\n

El-Fasher today is more than a battlefield; it is the frontline of Sudanese sovereignty. The city has withstood more than 225 RSF-led assaults, during which the siege stripped away any illusions: \u201cforeign hands\u201d are no metaphor\u2014they translate directly into Sudanese blood.<\/p>\n

Global silence in the face of mercenaries in Darfur cannot be read as neutrality, but as complicity. What is unfolding is not merely a test of Sudan\u2019s resilience, but a moral test for the international community: either confront this mercenary invasion with accountability and justice, or be recorded by history as having allowed Sudanese blood to be traded as currency in the global market of hired guns.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sudan\u2019s war exposes the essence of proxy conflicts: small states weaponizing wealth and mercenaries to redraw regional maps at the expense of others\u2019 lives. El-Fasher is the mirror reflecting this reality. The war is not an internal struggle, but a foreign-led invasion orchestrated from Abu Dhabi. It is time to expose these transnational networks and call them by their names: the \u201cDesert Wolves\u201d are not a battalion but a paid instrument of extermination, unleashed by the UAE and executed on Sudanese soil.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sabah al-Makki Sudan\u2019s war is no longer an internal affair, as some insist, but a full-fledged foreign invasion. Footage retrieved from the phone of a slain Colombian mercenary in Darfur reveals the stark reality: foreign fighters battling alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), under Emirati supervision, financing, and arms supply. It is a new …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53089,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53088\/revisions\/53089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}