THE ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Sudan traded barbs in a recent meeting at the United Nations Security Council.
“So we are dead sure that we have a case. We have a good case. We have substantiated it legally, and we will ask the Security Council just to walk the walk, and try to name and shame the UAE, and to lay pressure on it to stop supplying arms to the RSF,” Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed Permanent Representative of Sudan to UN said.
Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed once again accused the UAE of supplying weapons to the Sudanese army’s rival faction – the Rapid Support Forces.
The accusation did not sit well with the Gulf nation as UAE’s UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab called out the Sudanese envoy for spreading false allegations designed to distract the international community from “grave violations that are happening on the ground.”
The government of Sudan which has close ties to the army has accused the UAE of helping fuel the war by providing weapons and support to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The civil war which broke out on April 14, 2023, has entered its 14th month, with the Sudanese army and the paramilitary fighting for control over the war-torn nation.
Nearly 25 million people – or half of Sudan’s population – need aid, according to the United Nations, with the country at the brink of famine amid a raging war.
The agency said the conflict has killed about 14,000 people and displaced more than 10 million others in the past fourteen months.
Fighting escalated after the Sudanese army recently killed a senior rebel commander last week.
Despite the war of words with the Sudanese envoy, the UAE has committed $70 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan. The amount was 70% of its $100 million pledge for Northeast African nation announced in April.
The capital city of El-Fasher in Western Sudan’s Darfur region is the current flashpoint of the raging civil war. For weeks now, the paramilitary has been trying to seize control of the city which is home to 1.8 million people.
