Trampling on democratic freedoms, committing atrocities, & whitewashing occupation in Sudan
By Jehron Muhammad
(Columnist: Africa Watch)
@africawatchfcn
Sudan’s latest conflict between the Rapid Support Force (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti and Sudan’s Armed Force (SAF), headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burham has metastasized into a brutal civil war where over 12 million people have been displaced, and where massacres have become the norm, not the exception.
Following the latest fighting in the captured Northern Darfur capital city El Fasher, RSF paramilitary soldiers, reported Sudan Scholar, Dr. Alex de Waal, on NPR, and viewed by this writer, “where the (RSF) killers themselves videotaped themselves killing unarmed civilians, torturing, tormenting captives, and then casually shooting them as they smiled.”
And as the Middle East Monitor headline notes, “Sudan crisis not accidental: Rogue regimes UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Israel complicit in the genocide.”
And while the war has been framed by some as a “civil war” between RSF and SAF, it is instead shaped by extensive foreign interference that has exacerbated, and prolonged the violence and displacement of Sudan’s 44 million population, noted the Atlantic Council.
Not only Israel and the UAE, but recently, the RSF, appearing to be taking instructions from its UAE paymaster, “said that it has agreed to a humanitarian truce (while fighting continued in other regions) in Sudan proposed by the ‘Quad’ countries, which includes the US, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Details, reported aa.com.tr, “of the ceasefire’s implementation have not been disclosed, and no immediate reaction came from the Quad or the Sudanese army.” And in addition, the SAF has not agreed to a ceasefire, and in fact says the fighting continues.
According to aa.com.tr, “There are thousands of civilians in El-Fasher who are still trapped and prevented by the RSF from leaving and facing all forms of abuse,” Sudanese Minister of Human Resources and Social Welfare Mutasim Ahmed Saleh told a press conference in Port Sudan.
Minister Saleh called the situation in the Darfur capital city “a humanitarian catastrophe that shakes the conscience, and the chapters of this catastrophe are still ongoing.”
Add to the Quad you have the United Kingdom and its Security Council veto. The London based Guardian portrayed the UK government, with its Security Council veto power position with rejecting “atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite warning” of impending “genocide.”
Britain, reported the London based Guardian, “rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report seen by the Guardian.”
The UK “Government” noted the Guardian turned down plans six months into the 18-month siege of El Fasher opting for the “least ambitious” option, or the least expensive option, of the four options presented.
A report dated October 2025, documenting the (UK) decision, said: “Given resource constraints, (the UK) has opted to take the least ambitious approach to the prevention of atrocities, including CRSV (conflicted-related sexual violence).”
“Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist with the US-based human rights organization Paema (Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities), said: “Atrocities are not natural disasters – they are a political choice that are preventable if there is political will.”
“The FCDO’s decision (to pursue the least ambitious option for atrocity prevention) clearly shows the lack of priority this government places on atrocity prevention globally, but this has real-life consequences.”
Following the seemingly increasing outside of Sudan influencers, Israel’s oldest daily newspaper, Haaretz, noted in its August 2025 opinion piece that Israel was exploiting Sudan’s brutal war between the Rapid Support Force and Sudanese Armed Forces to justify a military expansion in the Red Sea under the guise of “protecting global shipping lanes from Houthi threats.”
Add to that, reported a recent Tehran Times, with the headline of Israel viewing the “Sudan conflict through the lens of Red Sea strategy.” Framed as “Israel’s ambitions in Sudan,” the report accuses the Zionist state of shadowing the Sudanese “turmoil.”
“In the shadows of this turmoil, the Zionist regime of Israel is maneuvering within a broader project to control the Red Sea corridors, under the familiar pretext of ‘combating Iranian arms smuggling’ toward Gaza and Yemen.”
According to the Tehran Times, “Since Sudan’s signing of the so-called Abraham Accords in 2020, Israel has intensified its political and security footprint in Khartoum and surrounding areas.”
Add to that, according to the jacobin.com “Since normalizing relations… Israel and the United Arab Emirates have teamed up to do what both do best: trample on democratic freedoms, commit atrocities, and whitewash occupation.”
A recent CNN dispatch titled “The UAE and Israel’s whirlwind honeymoon has gone beyond normalization,” correspondent Ben Wedeman writes of the “mutual enthusiasm” infecting the Israeli government and the federation of Arab sheikhdoms, so much so that the UAE “appears to have dropped, in practical terms, any objections to Israel’s occupation of Arab lands,” noted jacobin.com
Donald Trumps most recent words of condemnation, noted humanrightsresearch.org “mean little in contrast to the United States’ continual allyship with and investment in the United Arab Emirates, the country that has been funneling resources, weapons, and money into Sudan to keep the RSF afloat since the start of the civil war.”
“The US has made it clear that it will continue to uphold systems of oppression and systemic murder against its better judgment. Within the past few months, news from Washington has signaled the development of an 80-story Trump tower in the UAE’s capital and $1.4 trillion worth of investments in the Emirati artificial-intelligence sector.”
During April 2025, Sudan held hope that The International Court of Justice (ICJ) would make a finding against the UAE, which it accused of being complicit in acts of genocide by arming and aiding the paramilitary RSF.
“The case, formally titled Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in Sudan (Sudan v. United Arab Emirates), was initiated when Sudan filed an application instituting proceedings against the UAE.”
“Regrettably the ICJ rejected the application saying it “manifestly lacked” jurisdiction to rule on the case and threw it out,” reported themiddleeastmonitor.com
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