The EU’s silence on UAE involvement in Sudan’s war

The contractor was among hundreds of former fighters recruited by the Abu Dhabi-based Global Security Services Group (GSSG), an entity with deep ties to the UAE’s ruling family. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, these forces have been deployed alongside the RSF, a group implicated in atrocities that UN investigators have described as having the "hallmarks of genocide." Despite the visibility of these operations, the UAE maintains blanket denials, even as its own advanced surveillance infrastructure makes such claims of ignorance increasingly implausible.

European Union member states remain hesitant to challenge the UAE, prioritizing economic and security partnerships over the humanitarian crisis that has displaced 14 million people. While Brussels diplomats insist they are engaging the Emirates through private channels, the strategy has yielded no measurable change. Human Rights Watch documented these foreign fighters present during the October 2025 fall of El Fasher, where civilians were massacred and abducted. By failing to impose targeted sanctions on GSSG or its CEO, Mohamed Hamdan Al Zaabi, the EU effectively subsidizes the very instability that drives thousands of refugees toward its own borders. Meaningful action, including a comprehensive arms embargo, remains absent from the bloc’s agenda.