The Sudanese ambassador to the UN urged the international community on Tuesday to pile the pressure on the United Arab Emirates, accusing it of propping up the paramilitaries in Sudan's devastating war.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a conflict with Sudan's regular army since April 2023.
The supplier of arms to the RSF "is very well known. Unfortunately, it is the UAE," Hassan Hamid, the ambassador of Sudan's army-aligned government to the United Nations in Geneva, said.
"Sudan repeatedly calls upon the international community to act today with... public decisive pressure on the United Arab Emirates to cease immediately arming and financing such terrorist militia," he told reporters.
UAE denies Khartoum's allegations
The war, which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions more, has spread to new areas of Sudan in recent days, sparking fears of an even graver humanitarian catastrophe.
The fall of the key city of Al Fasher gave paramilitaries control over all five state capitals in the vast western Darfur region.
Early in the conflict, the army accused the UAE of supporting the RSF with weapons and mercenaries sent via neighbouring nations by land and air.
The UAE has consistently denied any involvement.
Pressure 'must be declared publicly'
"This pressure must not be whispered only behind closed doors. It must be declared publicly and openly, enforced with robust sanctions, and matched by a decisive accountability to the supplier," Hamid said.
In the aftermath of the RSF's assault on Al Fasher, reports emerged of mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on aid workers, looting and abductions during the October 26 offensive.
The UN rights office said it had received "horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement."
"Unless these military supplies stopped and halted immediately, things will be always a recipe for further deterioration of human rights," said Hamid.
