US rebukes backers of Sudanese paramilitary force behind ‘horrific’ atrocities

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that Washington knew who was arming Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces and that they “must stop immediately”, the closest America has come to calling out the alleged involvement of the United Arab Emirates.

The RSF has been accused by rights groups and aid agencies of mass killings, systematic rape and sexual violence since seizing El Fasher, the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in western Sudan, last month.

The atrocities have put an international spotlight on the sophisticated armoury accumulated by the militia — which Washington has accused of genocide — during the civil war. The war erupted in 2023 after a power struggle between RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and former allies in the SAF.

The UAE, an important US ally in the region, has been repeatedly accused of funnelling weapons and resources to the militia but strenuously denies the allegations.

Rubio said he did not want to “call anybody out” when asked at a press conference about the UAE’s alleged support for the RSF. But he added: “We know who the parties are that are involved. That is why they are part of the Quad.”

The Trump administration convened the Quad — the US, UAE and SAF-backers Saudi Arabia and Egypt — in a bid to find a solution through the regional powers with most influence over the war.

In a statement to the Financial Times, the UAE expressed “alarm at the heinous attacks against civilians by RSF forces in El Fasher”, adding that “continued offensives by the Sudanese Armed Forces . . . have inflicted unimaginable suffering”.

“Neither of the two warring parties have a role in Sudan’s future,” said the UAE, which has repeatedly denied arming the RSF during the war.

However, in the first public sign of US impatience with Abu Dhabi, Rubio said: “We are not going to let the Quad process that we have set up be a shield that people hide behind . . . we need actionable results, and they need to happen very quickly.”

Abu Dhabi argued that the Quad had taken a “historic step” towards ending the conflict with its most recent joint statement, which provided a “road map” for peace.

Asked whether Washington would consider designating the RSF as a terrorist group, the US secretary of state said it would “if it helped to end this war”. The US previously imposed sanctions on a network of UAE-based companies for providing military equipment and financial support to the militia.

The UN and other humanitarian agencies have been sounding the alarm on the extreme malnourishment of the citizens who managed to escape El Fasher after the RSF’s 18-month siege.

But Rubio said more worrying was that the number of people reaching help was far fewer than aid agencies had expected, leading to fears they were “dead” or too “sick or famished” to move.

In a reference to concerns held by the UAE and other nations about Islamist factions embedded in the SAF, he said the US shares the fears about Sudan becoming a “nest of jihadis”.

But the solution “was not to fight a war where civilians are being targeted for rape, sexual violence and murder”, he said.

He said it was not “rogue elements” responsible for massacres, as the RSF claimed, but “systematic” and “horrifying atrocities against women, children, innocent civilians”. He added that the militia group had no intention of complying with the ceasefire they signed up to last week.  

Flight-tracking experts have charted a steady flow of cargo planes, including since the fall of El Fasher, stopping at a UAE-controlled base in Somalia, before continuing on to Libya and Chad, which border RSF-controlled Sudan.

Rubio put the African countries accused of providing an air bridge on notice, saying the RSF “are clearly receiving assistance from outside. And, clearly, that assistance isn’t just coming from some country that is paying for it. It is also coming from countries that are allowing their territory to be used to ship it and transport it.”

“This needs to stop immediately,” he said.

Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish in Dubai