UAE Must Stop Fueling Sudan Atrocities 

Statement from Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk:

“As President Biden prepares to meet tomorrow with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, a major exposé published this weekend in the New York Times has revealed further evidence that the United Arab Emirates is providing direct military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary force in Sudan. Over the past year, the RSF has received a steady flow of UAE weapons as it conducts an ongoing rampage of atrocity crimes throughout Darfur, including systematic rape, ethnic cleansing, and widespread killings. Refugees International and other rights organizations have documented firsthand accounts of these crimes. The RSF’s actions may amount to genocide – directly fueled by the UAE’s military support.

At this very moment, the RSF is assaulting and besieging the town of El Fasher, the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Darfuris displaced by the RSF’s campaign of atrocities – many already facing famine. Furthermore the UAE has provided this military support under the cover of an Emirates Red Crescent humanitarian mission – a grave violation of the statutes of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and potentially a war crime. And it has done all this in direct violation of the UN arms embargo on Darfur.

Urgent action must be taken to ensure accountability for these violations and to halt the RSF’s crimes.

Refugees International first spoke out on the UAE’s and Emirates Red Crescent’s abuse of humanitarian aid a year ago after initial reports of the UAE’s support to the RSF. Our action at that time helped to prompt an investigation by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Crescent Societies and bring greater global attention to the illicit arms shipments. This new reporting removes any remaining ambiguity about the roles of the UAE and Emirates Red Crescent in enabling atrocity crimes in Darfur. Now is the time for action.

President Biden will meet on Monday with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The U.S. administration has been reluctant to publicly acknowledge, much less condemn, the UAE’s illicit support to the RSF. We call on President Biden to use this meeting to convey a tough message to President bin Zayed, and to publicly condemn UAE support to the RSF.

As global leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly, the UAE’s conduct also poses a challenge to the credibility of the United Nations. The UAE is blatantly violating the longstanding UN Security Council arms embargo on Darfur – an embargo that the UAE itself voted to extend in 2023. We call upon the UNSC to review the UAE’s embargo violations and take action to hold the UAE accountable.

This accountability must also extend to the Emirates Red Crescent, which has allowed itself to be instrumentalized in service of mass atrocities, and has stonewalled the Red Cross Federation’s attempts to investigate. This constitutes a grave violation of multiple elements of Article 4 of the statutes of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement – specifically the obligations to adhere to the humanitarian principles of the Movement and to abide by international humanitarian law. We call upon the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to suspend the membership of the Emirates Red Crescent pending a full and transparent investigation of its role in these embargo violations.

Global sports and entertainment leaders must now fundamentally reconsider their partnerships with the UAE. The UAE has long used its sponsorship of prominent sports teams and events to bolster its global reputation, and brought in major entertainers to perform. In just a few weeks, the NBA will hold a pair of pre-season games in Abu Dhabi between the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets. This kind of “sports-washing” of the UAE’s global reputation must stop. We call on the NBA to cancel these games, and we call on sports and entertainment figures to follow the artist Macklemore’s lead and suspend performances, events, and partnerships with the UAE.

Finally, we call on the United Arab Emirates to immediately restrain their RSF client, to prevent the assault on El Fasher, and to halt any further military support to the RSF.”

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Etant Dupain at edupain@refugeesinternational.org.