All responsible
Both sides are equally responsible for this litany of horrors. The Sudanese Armed Forces (FAS) and the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) have been regularly accused of committing serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL), some of which could constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If the civil war was once confined to and around the capital Khartoum, it has since spread widely and now affects the entire country, including the Darfur region (northwest), which has been under a UN arms embargo since July 2004. In the face of this escalation, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have called for an extension of this embargo, deemed both too limited and poorly enforced.
The role of the United Arab Emirates
A situation highlighted by the Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security (Grip) in one of its recent publications emphasizes the role of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the supply of arms, including European arms, to Sudan in support of the FSR paramilitaries. Abu Dhabi denies any involvement in this transfer of arms officially purchased in Europe before being illegally transported to Sudan, bypassing the UN embargo and not respecting non-export commitments made to the producing countries, notably France.
Grip also points out that the denials by the United Arab Emirates are contradicted by investigations conducted by UN experts, international media, or human rights defense NGOs like Amnesty International, which have documented the presence of this military equipment in Sudan in the hands of FSR militias.
Complacencies
From the viewpoint of the producing countries (France, the UK, and Bulgaria), reactions are still pending. Parliamentary debates have sometimes taken place without challenging the arms trade with the UAE.
Grip notes that France remains the second-largest arms supplier to the UAE for the period 2021-2025. The UK has not questioned its arms export policy to the UAE and even increased its arms sales to the country between April and June 2025, with licenses totaling 172 million pounds (almost 200 million euros). A similar scenario in Bulgaria where authorities have sought to deny any direct responsibility in the diversion, allowing them to avoid revising their arms export policy.
