Human Rights Investigators Say UAE-Trained Colombian Mercenaries Fought Alongside Sudan Force Accused of El-Fasher Massacre

New human rights investigations are casting a harsh light on the foreign muscle behind Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, with researchers alleging that hundreds of Colombian mercenaries — trained on military bases in the United Arab Emirates — fought alongside the paramilitary group during its blood-soaked capture of el-Fasher in Darfur.

The RSF seized el-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur outside its control, on Oct. 26, 2025, after the withdrawal of the Sudanese Armed Forces. What followed was one of the worst atrocities of Sudan's nearly three-year civil war. The UN Human Rights Office documented more than 6,000 killings in the first three days of the RSF offensive — at least 4,400 people slain inside el-Fasher and more than 1,600 others cut down along exit routes as they tried to flee. A UN fact-finding mission later concluded that the destruction and the targeting of non-Arab communities bore the "hallmarks of genocide."

Now, accounts compiled by Human Rights Watch and other investigators allege that the paramilitary's ranks were stiffened by foreign guns for hire. An Abu Dhabi-based security company, Global Security Services Group, recruited hundreds of Colombian private military contractors and deployed them to fight alongside the RSF beginning in 2024, the findings say. The contractors were trained on bases inside the UAE, and investigators say evidence places some of them in el-Fasher in October 2025, when the RSF stormed the city and carried out widespread massacres and rapes.

The allegations sharpen long-running accusations that the UAE has served as a critical patron of the RSF, funneling weapons, money and now manpower to a force accused of ethnic cleansing — claims Abu Dhabi has repeatedly and categorically denied. The use of Colombian veterans, many of them hardened by decades of that country's internal conflict, reflects a booming and largely unregulated global market in private soldiers willing to fight in distant wars for pay.

Inside el-Fasher, the suffering has not ended with the city's fall. The Sudan Doctors Network reported that 20 doctors, more than 1,470 civilians and 907 military personnel are being held in dire conditions across multiple RSF-run detention facilities. The network described "severe violations" inside the centers, including killings during torture and interrogation, as well as ethnically motivated executions.

Humanitarian access to the city remains almost nonexistent, leaving aid agencies unable to verify the fate of thousands of residents or deliver food and medicine. As investigators continue to document the scale of the atrocities, the emerging mercenary connection threatens to widen the circle of accountability beyond Sudan's warring generals to the foreign governments and companies that helped arm, fund and staff one of the deadliest sieges of the conflict.