Well over three years after the war in Sudan broke out on April 15, 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), are now fighting for control of El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan. This is only the latest in a chain of sieges and battles that have left 59,000 people dead and 33 million people in need of food, shelter and health services, making this the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis”, according to the UN.
El Obeid is also a stark reminder that the responsibilities for this crisis extend beyond Sudanese borders. “Without the backing of the UAE [United Arab Emirates], we would not have seen so many atrocities,” says Mutasim Ali of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, an international NGO. The RSF alone would not have the capacity to target civilian infrastructures with highly sophisticated drones like it is doing now in the siege of El Obeid, he explains. “Only States can acquire those. That is part of the reason why we believe that without holding the UAE to account we will not end this.” Together with others, he last month sent a communication to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In January 2025, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan promised before the UN Security Council that he would file requests for arrest warrants in relation to abuses committed in Darfur since 2023. Darfur is the only region of Sudan falling within the Court’s jurisdiction, after the Security Council referred it to the Court in 2005. But according to an investigation by Middle East Eye published in early July, such requests were apparently never submitted – meaning that a pre-trial chamber should have “ordered” the Office of the Prosecutor to explain the delay. On July 15, Deputy ICC Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan assured the UN Security Council that her office “had now made significant progress” in the investigation into crimes committed in El Fasher in 2025 and Al Geneina in 2023, amongst other places. She spoke of “concrete progress” in the investigation targeting “those who carry out these attacks, those who plan them, and those who support the commission of atrocities from afar and believe they can benefit from impunity”.
It is against this backdrop that three initiatives were launched last month. Within a few weeks, two communications were submitted to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office, whilst a complaint alleging crimes against humanity and war crimes was filed on the basis of universal jurisdiction in Nairobi, Kenya. What they have in common is that they do not merely target soldiers on the ground but seek to trace the chain of responsibility back to those who, from abroad, are alleged to have made these crimes possible by supplying the RSF with weapons, military equipment and mercenaries, or by supporting the SAF with drones, explosives and logistical support.
Whilst these initiatives are unlikely to lead to actual prosecutions in the short term, they nevertheless help to inform ongoing investigations and maintain judicial and political pressure on those who, from abroad, are fuelling the war.
Tracing the chain of command
On June 16, an initial complaint was lodged with the ICC by seven Sudanese nationals, all from El Fasher and Umm Kaddada in North Darfur. In it, they denounce the abuses they claim to have suffered or witnessed in RSF attacks during the siege of El Fasher between April 2024 and October 2025 – including executions, acts of torture, sexual violence and forced displacement. These acts may constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes, explains their lawyer, Élise Le Gall. She says the complaint “also explores the issue of genocide”, which has already been raised by several United Nations mechanisms.
This submission aims to “support the work currently being carried out” by the ICC Prosecutor’s Office, according to the lawyer, by providing new evidence that could further its investigations. Above all, however, it aims to persuade investigators to extend their probe to those who, without having participated directly in the abuses, may have helped make them possible from abroad – especially the United Arab Emirates.
For over a year now, new international sanctions, as well as several reports and journalistic investigations, have highlighted the role of external actors in the RSF’s operation, funding, recruitment and logistical support, particularly that of Abu Dhabi. “We have chosen to focus this submission on the United Arab Emirates because the evidence at our disposal points to them as one of the main actors likely to have played a role in the alleged acts,” explains Le Gall. “In light of this evidence, we believe we have a sufficiently solid factual and legal basis to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.”
She believes that without the UAE the conflict would never have reached the same scale or intensity. “When Rapid Support Forces fighters receive shipments of weapons, drones, howitzers, rocket launchers and air defence systems, they become a formidable fighting force, with disastrous consequences for civilian populations who are deliberately targeted,” says the lawyer. The challenge is to “trace the chain of responsibility” back to those who made these crimes materially possible.
Fingers point to Abu Dhabi and Dubai
The application is based on provisions of the Rome Statute that allow for criminal liability of any person who has facilitated or contributed to the commission of international crimes. If the Office of the Prosecutor were to apply these provisions, it would, according to Le Gall, be “unprecedented”. “To my knowledge, the ICC has never prosecuted business leaders for their role in providing logistical or financial support in a conflict, nor has it prosecuted foreign political leaders for complicity,” says the lawyer.
This strategy targets two groups of people: several RSF fighters directly implicated in the crimes committed in El Fasher and Umm Kaddada – including “Abu Lulu”, whose execution videos have been widely circulated; and several businessmen and political figures linked to the United Arab Emirates, suspected of having helped to bolster the militia’s military capabilities.
Among them is Algoney Hamdan Dagalo Musa, Hemedti’s younger brother who is known to be one of the main figures responsible for the RSF’s procurement of arms and military equipment. He is suspected of having used his Dubai-based company Tradive General Trading to acquire pick-up trucks which were subsequently converted into vehicles fitted with heavy weapons – the very same vehicles that are alleged to have been used to deliberately run over civilians during the capture of El Fasher.
On the UAE side, the complaint also targets Mohamed Hamdan Alzaabi, owner of the security firm Global Security Services Group (GSSG), which is accused of recruiting Colombian mercenaries to assist the RSF on the ground, notably in El Fasher. In a report published in May 2026, the NGO Human Rights Watch described the company as a “supposedly private” firm which has “close ties with the authorities of the United Arab Emirates” and “the ruling family”.
Finally, the applicants are calling for an investigation into the role of two of the country’s most senior leaders: Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Vice-President Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. “The information we have gathered suggests that the Emirati authorities may have played a role in setting up a logistics platform that enabled the delivery of arms to the RSF, notably via Chad,” explains Le Gall. “These findings raise questions about the authorisations that would have been required and the extent of knowledge and responsibility of the authorities concerned.”
Pointing to Sudan government army backers
On June 29, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights followed suit with its own communication to the ICC on Sudan. The Canada-based NGO, together with a broad coalition of legal and investigative experts and civil society organisations, asked the Court to issue arrest warrants against senior officials and businesspeople in the UAE and Sudan’s neighbours, such as Chad, Libya and Somalia, for “aiding and abetting” crimes committed by the RSF in Darfur. But it did not stop there. It also pointed to the “conduct of individuals in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran in providing arms and military support to the SAF”.
“We know from the body of evidence that the UAE is the primary actor here,” says Ali. “But for us, what is really important is to cover the involvement of external actors more broadly. As soon as we believe that there is enough evidence to implicate other countries, we say so.” He explains that many of the indiscriminate air and drone strikes by the SAF were committed using Iranian and Turkish drones, and that Egypt has been a “key ally” of the SAF.
Regarding the evidence, Ali’s colleague Yonah Diamond would say only that it is based on an internal investigation with “confidential sources” and the outside work of OSINT investigators who verified data like shipments and flight tracking. Besides supplying arms and mercenaries, their investigation found that the UAE has also financed the construction of airports in Chad and Ethiopia and training camps in other countries to “house drones used in the conflict and as transit hubs for RSF weapons”. As for the SAF, it states that “Egypt has provided drones, explosives, intelligence and logistical support to the SAF, as a means of accessing Sudan’s gold trade, among other geopolitical motives”.
Ali says they looked at high-level senior officials and corporate executives involved in sending “arms shipments with knowledge that these shipments are going to the perpetrators to commit atrocities”. He says that “the idea here is to put them on notice without even naming them” and demand that the ICC Prosecutor “looks at foreign actors”.
A universal jurisdiction case in Kenya?
But given the international justice deadlock on Sudan, another avenue is also being explored. On June 9, three international organisations including Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) and the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies filed a complaint with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Nairobi, Kenya, on the basis of universal jurisdiction. It was brought on behalf of 12 presumed victims, who are calling for a probe into crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed between April 2023 and March 2025 in Khartoum and the surrounding area – that is, outside the ICC’s jurisdiction.
According to Antonia Mulvey, director of LAW, these individuals were all unlawfully imprisoned “at one time or another” in facilities controlled by the RSF. During their detention, “they were tortured, subjected to sexual violence – including rape and sexual slavery – and other forms of persecution. They were also forced to witness the execution of members of their families”.
For the organisations behind the complaint, this is a first: never before have proceedings been initiated in Kenya under the principle of universal jurisdiction for international crimes committed abroad. The move is based on the International Crimes Act of 2008, which allows the judicial authorities to prosecute any person suspected of having participated in genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes “in Kenya or elsewhere”, provided there is a connecting factor with the country – such as the alleged perpetrator having Kenyan citizenship or their presence on Kenyan territory after the offences were committed.
The evidence presented must now convince the prosecutor that several of the individuals targeted have sufficiently close ties to Kenya to justify the exercise of jurisdiction by Kenyan courts. In total, Mulvey explains, the complaint targets ten RSF commanders “of intermediate to senior rank”, suspected of maintaining “political and financial links” with Kenya. Some are even said to hold Kenyan nationality, “which allows them to move freely both within and outside the country”.
The Kenyan connection
Whilst the identities of the individuals concerned remain confidential, these allegations echo several recent revelations. In February 2026, the leak of an internal immigration service document – the authenticity of which has never been acknowledged by the authorities – revealed the names of several Sudanese nationals among the holders of Kenyan passports. At the same time, an update to the US sanctions notice targeting Algoney Hamdan Dagalo Musa appeared to confirm one such case, as the US Treasury Department stated that Hemedti’s younger brother also holds a Kenyan passport… and an Emirati identity card.
This information sparked widespread outrage across the country. The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, David Maraga, has called for an investigation, suggesting that the “warlord” may have obtained this document “irregularly”.
But the passport affair is not the only factor fuelling suspicions. In June 2025, an investigation by Bellingcat and the Daily Nation identified, in a warehouse said to have belonged to the RSF in Khartoum, crates of ammunition with markings indicating they were destined for Kenya. Furthermore, it was in Nairobi that the militia in February 2025 signed the charter establishing its parallel government, prompting the recall of the Sudanese ambassador and a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Paradoxically, the links that the organisations cite to establish the jurisdiction of the Kenyan authorities are also what make this case sensitive. Will the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions launch an investigation into allegations involving officials who are said to have political, financial or administrative ties with Kenya? “When we filed our complaint, we were pleased to note that it had been received favourably and constructively. We were also assured that it would be examined,” says Mulvey, pointing out that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is an “independent body”.
“This case is not only an opportunity to test Kenya’s commitment to international justice. It also demonstrates that, although domestic accountability systems and the international community have failed the Sudanese people, the paths to justice are not entirely closed,” says Owiso Owiso, one of the complainants’ lawyers, in a joint statement issued by the three organisations.
“A test case”
As for the ICC, it remains to be seen whether the Office of the Prosecutor will act on these communications. Le Gall believes the context is favourable. “The United Nations’ warnings on Sudan have become so numerous that there is now a wealth of information that must be put to legal use,” she says. In her view, this initiative is also part of a broader trend in international criminal justice, which is gradually shifting its focus away from solely targeting the direct perpetrators of crimes towards also holding accountable those who enable them. “As in the Lafarge and Lundin cases, we are seeing a growing trend towards holding economic actors and external political supporters to account.”
According to Diamond of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, this is also a “test case for the ICC to prove its effectiveness on the world stage” and “close the impunity gap that allows the external actors who are sitting abroad in their capitals to be the ones that are really fuelling and profiting off of these atrocities”.
Besides the ICC, the Wallenberg Centre also has its eyes on the other Hague Court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In March 2025, Sudan brought a case against the UAE under the Genocide Convention, but the ICJ judges dismissed it because of a lack of jurisdiction. Diamond says they have been working to get States to bring a new case “under multiple treaties”. One avenue could be to include the arms embargo imposed by the UN in July 2004 on non-governmental entities in the Darfur region and never really enforced. “We believe that the UAE cannot get off the hook,” says Ali. “There are ways to do this. The major challenge that we’re facing at the moment is to secure a State willing to institute the proceedings. That is more a matter of political will than a legal question.”
Ali admits that the lack of political will remains a stumbling block in all justice efforts against figures and networks linked to the Emirates. “The UAE have become almost a key component of the world economy in terms of exports, mobility and entertainment,” says David Donat Cattin, Adjunct Professor of International Law at New York University, who has been looking closely at the country’s involvement in the Sudan war. “In the context of international law and international relations, the most effective sanctions are not the legal or criminal ones, but the ones imposed by the court of public opinion. They create situations in which it becomes inconvenient to breach international law.”
“These initiatives have strong symbolic force,” adds Donat Cattin. “Sooner or later, people in power change. So we need to focus on medium to long-term goals.”
