UAE-Linked 747 Flies Toyota Pickups to Ethiopia Amid Record Airlift

According to OSINT analyst Rich Tedd, who tracks cargo flights on X as @AfriMEOSINT, a Pecotox-Air Boeing 747 freighter flew Toyota Land Cruiser pickups to Addis Ababa’s Bole Airport. His tracking shows 13 flights from Al Ain to Bole since Oct. 11.

Tedd says the vehicles will likely end up with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The UAE and Ethiopia have denied supporting the paramilitary group.

The Claim

Tedd posted on Nov. 1 that the cargo on those flights by Pecotox-Air’s 747 freighter ER-MAM was “TLC pickups.” He describes Pecotox-Air as linked to the UAE government.

“They will likely end up in RSF hands,” he wrote. His post includes a photo that he says shows the vehicles being unloaded at Bole’s cargo terminal.

The image pairs the unloading scene, a white pickup on a lift loader at the open nose of a 747, with a Flightradar24 playback of Pecotox flight P3405 from Al Ain for ER-MAM.

A Record Month

In a thread the same day, Tedd said October was the busiest month for the UAE-Ethiopia airlift he has recorded. He counted at least 81 “suspicious” cargo flights from Al Ain airport and Al Reef Airbase.

About 23 Al Ain-to-Bole flights by Boeing 747 freighters drove the surge, he said.

By departure point, 52 flights left Al Ain, 26 left Al Reef, two left Fujairah and one left Sharjah. Oct. 11 and Oct. 20 were the busiest days, with five flights each.

Drop Site News reported that the total nearly doubles the 44 flights Tedd tracked in August.

Tedd’s tracking shows ER-MAM flying from Al Ain to Bole on Oct. 19, 20, 25 and 27, with further departures toward Ethiopia on Oct. 30 and 31. He also said it flew to N’Djamena, Chad, on Oct. 7, 14, 16 and 23, and parked on the airport’s military apron on the later flights.

According to Tedd, a sister Pecotox 747, ER-MDR, also flew to Bole and to Benghazi, Libya.

The Airline

Pecotox-Air is a cargo carrier based in Chisinau, Moldova. Its website puts its first commercial flight on Nov. 22, 2024, on the Al Ain-Benin route.

It operates two Boeing 747-400 freighters. ER-MDR, formerly with China Airlines, has flown for the company since October 2024. ER-MAM, formerly with Cathay Pacific, joined in June 2026.

Tedd describes Pecotox-Air as UAE government-linked. ER-MAM is a Boeing 747-467F, while ER-MDR is a 747-409F.

Earlier Allegations

Reuters reported in December 2024 that at least 86 UAE flights had headed to an airstrip at Amdjarass in eastern Chad since the war began in April 2023. UN experts and diplomats suspected it was used to funnel weapons to the RSF. The UAE denied it.

Reuters reported on Feb. 10 that Ethiopia hosts a secret camp in the Benishangul-Gumuz region to train thousands of RSF fighters. Eight sources, including a senior Ethiopian government official, said the UAE financed it. Reuters could not independently verify UAE involvement.

A senior UAE official told The National on Feb. 12 that the UAE “categorically rejects” allegations that it provided, financed, transported or facilitated weapons, vehicles or other military equipment to the RSF.

Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab published satellite analysis on April 8 showing car transporters offloading unarmed “technical” vehicles at an Ethiopian army base in Asosa since December 2025. The base lies roughly 100 km from Sudan’s Kurmuk.

About 200 vehicles were seen in February, some fitted with gun mounts. Middle East Eye, which reported the findings first, said they were linked through open-source video to Berbera, Somaliland, where the UAE runs a base. Ethiopia’s government and the RSF did not respond to it.

Le Monde reported in March that the UAE was rewiring supply routes to the RSF through Ethiopia. It found that Batot Air, a Burkina Faso-registered cargo firm, made at least 36 UAE-Ethiopia trips in four months, landing at Bole or the Bishoftu air base, often with transponders off.

The UN Panel of Experts’ final report on Sudan, a copy of which has circulated online, says the RSF used the N’Djamena-Nyala air corridor to move fighters, mercenaries and weapons into Darfur. It does not mention Pecotox-Air.

The UAE told the UN in Geneva on Sept. 4 that it had not provided arms or related materiel to any party in Sudan since the war began.

Fighting in Blue Nile

Fighting has escalated in Sudan’s Blue Nile state. A military source cited by Mada Masr said the RSF seized the Kadalo mountains area on Oct. 3 after attacking from inside Ethiopia. Drones have struck the state capital, Ed Damazin.

A drone attack on Oct. 9 killed at least 30 displaced people near Damazin, including 26 women and four children. AFP and Al Jazeera reported that the governor of Wad al-Mahi province said the drone was launched from inside Ethiopia.

Mada Masr, citing an RSF source, reported that hundreds of RSF fighters were flown from Nyala to Addis Ababa on an “air bridge” in recent weeks.

Denials and Diplomacy

Sudan’s ambassador told the UN Security Council on Oct. 16 that drones were being launched into Blue Nile from neighboring countries. Ethiopia’s ambassador called the accusations “baseless.”

On Oct. 29, Sudan said 162 drone attacks launched from Ethiopian territory had killed more than 400 civilians and 102 military personnel, Dabanga reported. Ethiopia has rejected the allegations.

The Security Council on Oct. 8 extended the Darfur-focused Sudan sanctions regime by two months, to Dec. 11. A U.S. push to widen the arms embargo to all of Sudan faltered.

A year has passed since the RSF took El Fasher in late October 2025. The UN panel says the group killed at least 6,000 people there in three days.