THE United Nations reported on Thursday that foreign networks are helping fuel Sudan’s civil war, which has raged between the army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces since 2023.

It said a network of companies based in the United Arab Emirates, Colombia and Chad, among other nations, had supplied military contractors, weapons and training to the RSF for a war that has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced around 13 million and pushed many parts of Sudan into famine.

The International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, an independent body mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, found “reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network supplied the Rapid Support Forces with weapons, logistics, training and foreign personnel, including Colombian contractors involved in advanced weapons and drone systems.”

Its investigation alleged that “individuals and entities operating from, registered in, or linked to the United Arab Emirates played a significant role in networks involved in the recruitment, financing, transportation and deployment of foreign military contractors and the provision of military-related support benefiting the Rapid Support Forces.”

The UAE regularly denies that it backs the RSF militarily.

The report also said foreign-supplied drones had “expanded” the Sudanese army’s capabilities, though it added the findings about external support to the army “remain preliminary.”

The investigators called for the UN security council to extend its arms embargo on Sudan.

It said: “The weapons, financing, personnel and technology that sustain this war must be constrained.”

Investigators said they had documented drone attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure by both sides that may amount to war crimes.

They also linked foreign-trained fighters to two massacres in 2025 in Zamzam camp and El Fasher.

Survivors among the more than 100,000 people who fled el-Fasher reported RSF fighters gunning down civilians in homes and in the streets, leaving the city littered with bodies.

Satellite photos have since appeared to show RSF disposing of bodies in mass graves or by burning them.

Chad, Colombia and the United Arab Emirates co-operated with the investigators but “no substantive response” came from Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Somalia.

Panama, whose finance industry has faced accusations of industrial-scale money laundering, requested more time to reply. So far, the UN said neither the Sudanese military nor the RSF have co-operated with the investigation.