Barbara Plett UsherAfrica Correspondent
A network of Colombian mercenaries backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) provided critical support to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), enabling them to seize the western town of El-Fasher last year, according to a new report.
The United Arab Emirates has long denied supporting the RSF, which has been fighting the regular Sudanese army for three years.
The fall of El-Fasher was one of the most brutal chapters of the conflict, which led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands dead and millions forced from their homes.
The IGC has closely followed evidence of significant UAE military assistance to the RSF, but “this is the first research in which we can definitively prove UAE involvement,” its director Justin Lynch said.
“We are making public what governments have known for a long time: there is a direct link between Abu Dhabi and RSF.”
The report “shows mercenaries involved in drones traveling from a base in the United Arab Emirates to Sudan before RSF took El-Fasher,” he says.
“Mercenaries involved in drone operations even named their Wi-Fi network after their unit – linked to a company operated from the United Arab Emirates.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro last year reportedly called these mercenaries “specters of death” and described their recruitment as a “form of human trafficking.”
The BBC has requested a response from the UAE government to the latest findings.
The UAE has already issued statements rejecting what it called “false and unfounded allegations” that it supports RSF and condemning “in the strongest possible terms” the atrocities committed in El-Fasher.
Analysts agree that foreign support for both sides was essential to the continuation and expansion of the civil war.
The IGC says it used commercially available technology designed to make advertising more personal to track more than 50 cellphones in Sudan between April 2025 and January this year, whose operators were Colombian mercenaries, including in RSF-controlled areas from which drones were fired.
He also used flight tracking data, satellite imagery, social media videos, news stories and academic articles to support his analysis.
The report said its data detailed a pipeline showing mercenaries present in various regional staging areas, including a UAE military training center in Ghayathi, Abu Dhabi.
He tracked a phone from Colombia to Abu Dhabi’s Zayad International Airport and then to the facility, where he also found four other devices configured in Spanish, which is spoken in Colombia.
Two of these phones then traveled to the Sudanese state of South Darfur and one to Nyala, RSF’s de facto capital, where they connected to Wi-Fi networks named “ANTIAEREO” (meaning “anti-aircraft” in Spanish) and “AirDefense.”
Nyala is an important hub for Colombian mercenaries and RSF drone operations, the report said. The CIG documented significant drone activity there and identified more than 40 Spanish-language devices.
In another case study, the IGC tracked a phone from Colombia to Nyala and then to El-Fasher, in North Darfur state, as the RSF took control of the town after an 18-month siege.
In El-Fasher, the device connected to a Wi-Fi network called “ATACADOR” (“attacker” in Spanish), the report said. He adds that the IGC has identified other devices associated with Colombian mercenaries also present during the RSF takeover.
The fall of the city was accompanied by mass atrocities described as war crimes and crimes against humanity by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and described by UN investigators as bearing the “marks of genocide”.
“CIG believes that the Emirati and Colombian mercenary network bears shared responsibility for these results,” the report said.
“The scale of the atrocities and the siege of El-Fasher would not have happened without the drone operations provided by the mercenaries,” adds Lynch, noting that they also helped support the RSF siege.
According to the report, the mercenaries operated within the Desert Wolves brigade, serving as drone pilots, gunners and instructors.
One of them connected to the wi-fi networks named “DRONES” and “LOBOS DEL DISIERTO [sic]” (which means “Desert Wolves” in Spanish), while using the Spanish language settings.
The brigade is led by retired Colombian army colonel Alvaro Quijano, according to Colombian digital news site La Silla Vacía. He is based in the United Arab Emirates and has been sanctioned by the United States and the British governments for recruiting Colombians to fight in Sudan.
The Desert Wolves were paid and employed by a UAE-based company with documented ties to senior Emirati government officials, according to La Silla Vacía and documents obtained by the IGC, the report said.
The IGC also claims to have identified devices with Spanish-language parameters at a port in Somalia with ties to the United Arab Emirates, and in a city in southeastern Libya considered a logistical hub for the flow of weapons to the RSF, allegedly facilitated by the Emirates.
The number of Colombian fighters in Sudan has already been estimated at a few hundred.
The United States has twice sanctioned Colombian nationals and associated companies for recruiting mercenaries to fight in Sudan, in December and again last week.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Colombian fighters supported the RSF’s capture of El-Fasher, but failed to establish a direct link with the United Arab Emirates.
Read more about the war in Sudan from the BBC:
