UK Fails to Sanction UAE Despite Fears of Imminent Mass Slaughter in Sudan

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper has said a militia accused of genocide must halt its attacks on the city of El Obeid in Sudan amid fears of mass slaughter – but still won’t call on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to stop arming and funding the killing.

The UK last week convened an emergency debate on Sudan at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and warned that up to half a million civilians are at imminent risk of large-scale atrocities as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) close in on the city.

“The RSF must halt their attack,” Cooper said on X on Friday. “The international community must not turn away.”

​But there is no sign that the UK has taken any meaningful action against the RSF’s principal supporter, the UAE.

Ahead of last year’s massacre in El Fasher, then foreign secretary David Lammy was repeatedly told he had the power to prevent “one of the single largest mass casualty events of the 21st century” but failed to act, war crimes investigator Nathaniel Raymond told a parliamentary committee last month.

​Direct sanctions against UAE officials could have stopped the “clandestine UAE pipeline of advanced weaponry flowing to the RSF,” Raymond said. After Raymond’s warnings were ignored, the RSF killed at least 60,000 in El Fasher, at a conservative estimate.

As the sole penholder for Sudan at the Security Council, the UK is responsible for leading the international response to the conflict. But it has allowed the sale of arms to the UAE that have made their way into the hands of RSF forces, as well as allowing firms recruiting RSF fighters to operate out of the UK.