UN Report Links UAE to Colombian Mercenaries Fighting for Sudan’s RSF

A confidential U.N. report has accused an Abu Dhabi security company with close ties to the Emirati ruling family of hiring Colombian mercenaries to fight for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. The findings land as one of the UAE’s top diplomats campaigns to lead the U.N.

The report, sent to the Security Council on Friday and obtained by The New York Times, identifies the recruiter as Global Security Services Group (GSSG).

It amounts to the most detailed U.N. accounting yet of the Emirati role in Sudan’s war, covering drones, weapons and mercenaries in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

A Firm Close to Power

GSSG was founded by a senior official in the Emirati presidency. Its links to senior figures in the ruling family span politics, business and kinship.

The company’s own website markets it as a “preferred security provider” to the Emirati Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Presidential Affairs.

According to investigators, the Colombians were moved into Sudan through territory held by Emirati proxies in Libya and Somalia.

The ‘Desert Wolves’

The contractors, former Colombian military personnel known as “Lobos del Desierto,” were organized as an operations battalion.

They reportedly flew drones, trained fighters and provided artillery support during the RSF’s siege of El Fasher. The city fell in October 2025 after roughly 18 months of encirclement.

Estimates of their numbers vary, from hundreds to higher totals in some reporting.

The RSF, a paramilitary force, stands accused of atrocities carrying “hallmarks of genocide.”

Read more: Sudan’s army chief pledges to eliminate RSF “however long it takes”

A Blocked Report

The latest findings build on an earlier submission. In July 2026, the U.N. panel monitoring the Darfur arms embargo told the Security Council: “The U.A.E. supported the R.S.F. by providing mercenaries.”

That panel said the Colombians trained at two military bases in Abu Dhabi before deployment.

Its report was kept from public release after Bahrain objected. A senior U.N. official and a regional diplomat, speaking anonymously, said Manama acted at the UAE’s behest.

An Emirati spokesman rejected as unfounded any suggestion that the UAE was influencing a Security Council member. Bahrain’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The Candidate

The disclosures sharpen scrutiny of Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, 48, a late entrant in October to the race for U.N. Secretary-General.

Cambridge-educated and of Palestinian heritage, she served as the UAE’s permanent representative to the U.N. for more than a decade before returning home in 2024. She was appointed minister of state for foreign affairs last year.

She has also fronted Abu Dhabi’s denials over Sudan. “Those allegations are categorically untrue,” she told CNN in 2024, maintaining that the UAE sends only humanitarian aid.

In an email to The New York Times, she said ending the “terrible conflict” would be her priority. If investigators identified a foreign power fueling the war, she would “act on it and engage that State.”

“Sudan will be a litmus test for the next Secretary-General,” she wrote.

Critics Question Independence

Rights advocates argue her record cuts against that pledge.

“Lana Nusseibeh has spent over a decade in roles acting for the U.A.E. government and repeatedly whitewashing their abusive role in Yemen and Sudan, presenting Abu Dhabi as a humanitarian actor while dismissing or obscuring mounting evidence of its role in fueling abuses,” said Bruno Stagno Ugarte of Human Rights Watch.

He questioned whether she would defend the independence of U.N. investigative mechanisms.

Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst and Africa director at the National Security Council, said continued Emirati denials “make a mockery” of the bodies she seeks to lead. She “played a significant role in obfuscating her government’s contribution to atrocities in Sudan,” he said, which “ought to disqualify her from any further consideration.”

Mid-Field in the Race

Informal Security Council straw polls have placed Nusseibeh in the middle of the pack.

In the first round she finished fourth, with seven members in favor, six against and two abstentions. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan led.

Abu Dhabi’s Denials

An Emirati spokesman denied that the UAE had supported any side in the war or sought to undermine U.N. investigations.

The UAE told the U.N. that the company named in the report had not deployed mercenaries to Sudan or violated any Emirati law.

A Wider Pattern

According to earlier New York Times reporting, the UAE began supplying weapons, drones and military aid to the RSF within months of the war’s outbreak in 2023. Abu Dhabi denies this.

In 2024, the newspaper reported that the Emirates was flying powerful Chinese drones from a base in Chad under cover of a Red Cross operation.

Russia, Iran, Türkiye and Ukraine have also been involved, mainly through Sudan’s military. None has been as pivotal as the UAE, according to the Times.

Read more: Record UAE airlift to Ethiopia draws fresh claims of pickups bound for RSF

Past Diplomatic Pressure

The Times also cited earlier Emirati efforts to shape international scrutiny.

Emails from 2016 involving Ahmed al Qasimi, who worked for Nusseibeh at the U.N. mission, discussed arming Khalifa Hifter in Libya.

In November 2025, Abu Dhabi sought to influence a European Parliament resolution on Sudan. The text passed without naming the Emirates.

Read more: Sudan calls UAE a “country of evil” worsening the conflict