UAE-backed militia blamed for deadly Sudan drone attack on UN soldiers

A drone attack killed six UN soldiers in Sudan. The Sudanese military blamed the attack on the Rapid Support Force (RSF), a UAE-backed Arab supremacist militia accused of genocide. The strike wounded eight other troops in the city of Kadugli in Kordofan state. All casualties were Bangladeshi peacekeepers.

The war in Sudan is over two years old. Millions have been killed and displaced.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said the attack may be a war crime:

Attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.

The Sudanese military, which is fighting RSF, said the attack:

clearly reveals the subversive approach of the rebel militia and those behind it.

Not-so-secretly, the UAE has been arming RSF, including with British equipment. Indeed, the Gulf state is a major buyer of British and other Western state’s arms.

The troops were operating in the Abyei region. The Guardian describes the area as “oil-rich” and:

a disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan, and the UN mission has been deployed there since 2011, when South Sudan gained its independence from Sudan.

Sudan carnage

RSF took the southern city of El-Fasher in late October. However, the full death toll is not yet clear. RSF massacred their way through the city, as drone footage and satellite imagery suggests:

France 24 said RSF had denied the attack on Telegram:

the claims and allegations… regarding an air attack that targeted the United Nations headquarters in Kadugli, and the accompanying false accusations against our forces of being behind it through the use of a drone.

However Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris said:

the terrorist rebel militia has met all the conditions to be classified as a terrorist group.

Sudanese officials have repeatedly accused UAE on fueling the war.

And Babikir Elamin, the head of mission at Sudan’s London embassy, said in August:

The UAE is the main reason for prolonging the war, and without putting real pressure on them, we can’t expect any peaceful settlement of the crisis in Sudan.

The interests of Gulf states and Israel meet in Sudan. That makes the former British colony a key concern for Western powers too. Sudanese civilians are the ultimate losers. All in all, they’ve been slaughtered and displaced in their millions. Naturally, the UK is deeply entangled in the horrors. As long as nobody is held accountable, the killing with carry on.

Featured image via YouTube screenshot/Al Jazeera English