Since civil war erupted in Sudan last year, dozens of
cargo planes from the United Arab Emirates have landed at a small airstrip in
Chad that some U.N. experts and diplomats suspect is being used to funnel arms
across the border into the conflict, flight data and satellite images show.
At least 86 flights from the UAE have headed for an
airstrip at Amdjarass in eastern Chad since the war began in April 2023,
three-quarters of them operated by carriers accused by the U.N. of ferrying
Emirati weapons to a warlord in Libya, according to the flight data and
corporate documents reviewed by Reuters.
The UAE, a key Western ally in the Middle East, says it
has been sending aid for Sudan via Chad, not arms.
The country rejected a report by a U.N. panel of experts
in January that cited "credible" allegations the UAE was providing
military supplies via the Chad airstrip to Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF),
a paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese army in a conflict that has killed
tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
Previously unreported video footage reviewed by Reuters
from Amdjarass filmed this year, showing two pallets on the tarmac stacked with
khaki crates, some of them labelled with the UAE flag.
Reuters is withholding the exact date and origin of the
footage due to the risk of reprisals.
Three weapons experts, two of whom have worked as U.N.
investigators, said the crates appeared unlikely to be carrying humanitarian
aid, which is often packaged in cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic and stacked
high on pallets due to its light weight. The crates in the video appear to be
metal and are stacked low on the pallets.
The contents were "highly probably ammunition or
weapons, based on the design and colour of boxes," according to one of the
experts, who has worked as a U.N. weapons inspector and asked not to be
identified because of the sensitivity of the information. The long and thin
proportions of cases on the right-hand pallet indicate they likely contain
weapons, he added.
Reuters was unable to verify independently the crates'
contents. It is withholding the exact date of filming to protect the source.
In a statement sent to Reuters, the UAE government said
it had sent 159 relief flights with more than 10,000 tonnes of food and medical
aid, partly to supply a field hospital it has established in Amdjarass.
"We firmly reject the baseless and unfounded claims
regarding the provision of arms and military equipment to any warring party
since the beginning of the conflict," the statement said.
Since the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, the oil-rich
Gulf state has intervened in conflicts from Yemen to Libya, partly in an effort
to roll back Islamist groups. The UAE sees such groups, including the Muslim
Brotherhood, as a threat to domestic stability.
Islamists associated with the rule of ousted Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir have long held influence within Sudan's army.
Brigadier General Omar Hamdan, a senior RSF official,
denied the group received any outside support. It used weapons and ammunition
produced at factories in Sudan, he told reporters in Nairobi on Nov. 18,
without identifying the factories. The RSF did not respond to requests for
further comment for this story.
Brigadier General Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the
Sudanese army, said the supply of Emirati arms to the RSF was a "tangible
fact": "The flow of weapons and equipment from the UAE in this way to
the rebel Rapid Support Militia has not stopped since the outbreak of this
war."
“Logistics win wars”
Fighting between Sudan's army and the RSF began in
mid-April 2023 as the two factions, which had jointly seized full power in a
coup two years earlier, vied to protect their interests ahead of a planned
transition towards civilian rule.
The RSF, which has its roots in the Janjaweed militias
used by the government in its brutal suppression of an insurgency in Darfur two
decades ago, stormed through most of the capital, Khartoum, before
consolidating its grip on most of the western region of Darfur, which borders
Chad, and advancing across the south.
"Logistics win wars, and the UAE has used this plane
network to consistently facilitate weapons to the RSF," said Justin Lynch,
lead analyst at the Sudan Conflict Observatory monitoring platform, who
reviewed Reuters' flight analysis.
"UAE-supplied weapons to the RSF have altered the
balance of power in Sudan's conflict, prolonged the war and increased civilian
casualties."
The UAE has said its work in Amdjarass is purely
humanitarian including setting up a field hospital there where the Emirates Red
Crescent has treated more than 18,000 Sudanese refugees.
Tommaso Della Longa, spokesperson for the International
Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told Reuters the
IFRC has not been involved in the operations in Amdjarass and was not aware of
the hospital until it was publicized by Emirati officials. He said that two
IFRC fact-finding missions to Chad to better understand the situation were
unable to access the field hospital due to the security situation.
William Spindler, spokesperson for the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the UN refugee agency has not referred
any refugees to the hospital.
A member of the Chadian security forces who had been
deployed to Amdjarass this year described witnessing planes arriving with
crates that looked like the ones his units used to transport weapons. The
source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, said his unit was
involved in escorting the crates to the border with Sudan, where they were
handed over to RSF fighters.
Chadian authorities did not respond to a request for
comment about the flights and operations at Amdjarass. The Sudanese army did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Three aid workers with direct knowledge of the situation
in eastern Chad, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue,
said aid deliveries were nowhere near the volume the UAE says it has sent.
At meetings with senior U.S. officials in Washington this
fall, UAE delegates dropped their denials of providing backing to the RSF after
they were shown intelligence Washington had collected, one source with direct
knowledge of the meetings said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said:
"We are engaged in senior-level dialogue with partners in the region to
underscore the perils associated with supporting the belligerents, which will
prolong the conflict." He declined further comment on the meetings.
The New York Times has previously reported that the UAE
has used humanitarian aid as a cover to ship weapons, ammunition and drones to
the RSF through the Amdjarass airstrip, citing satellite imagery and current
and former officials from the United States, Europe and African countries.
Arms to Libya
In total, Reuters identified 170 flights, using satellite
imagery from Planet, Maxar and BlackSky, by planes that are based in the UAE
that headed on the route for Amdjarass since the start of the war.
Of those, Reuters was able to verify that at least 86
originated in UAE airports, including Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah.
Reuters was unable to confirm the point of origin of the other flights due to
gaps in flight tracking.
The Reuters review of the 170 flights headed for eastern
Chad found that around half were operated by four airlines that a U.N. panel of
experts accused of channelling UAE military support to Libyan general Khalifa
Haftar in 2019-2020, according to the flight tracking data.
They are ZetAvia and FlySky Airlines LLC, both based in
Ukraine, and FlySky Kyrgyz and Sapsan Airlines, based in Kyrgyzstan.
The involvement of these four airlines has not been
previously reported. Reuters was unable to establish what the planes were
carrying.
Another airline involved in the Chad airlift,
Kyrgyzstan-based New Way Cargo, was identified as supplying the RSF via Chad
with backing from the United Arab Emirates, according to a report in October
from the Sudan Conflict Observatory, which is funded by the U.S. State
Department.
The airlines and a spokesman for Haftar, who controls
eastern Libya, did not respond to requests for comment.
After the U.N. panel's findings in 2021, many of the
planes were deregistered by Ukrainian and Kazak authorities and registered in
Kyrgyzstan.
ZetAvia and Sapsan did not comment on the panel's
findings. FlySky Airlines told the panel that the cargo it transported
"does not constitute military cargo subject to United Nations Security
Council sanctions".
According to Reuters analysis of data from FlightRadar24,
many of the 170 flights briefly stopped in Kenya at airports in Nairobi and
Mombasa but have also stopped in Uganda's Entebbe airport, Kigali in Rwanda,
and Bosaso in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.
In Somaliland, a breakaway Somali province, a senior
official told Reuters that flights from the UAE stopping off at Berbera had
been carrying military equipment, according to information including the
landing requests sent to airport authorities. The official asked not to be
identified due to the sensitivity of the information and Reuters was unable to
review the landing requests or confirm the information independently.
The UAE has cultivated ties with Somaliland, beginning
construction in 2017 of a military base in Berbera that was later converted
into a military airport, according to six local officials and diplomats.
Kenya's Airport Authority and Ministry of Foreign Affairs
as well as the airport authorities in Rwanda, Uganda, Puntland and Somaliland
did not respond to requests for comment.
Nine officials in the United States, Britain and the
African Union told Reuters they were closely monitoring military support
flowing to the RSF from the UAE through Chad, though they have not made any
public accusations.
The African Union did not respond to a request for
comment. A spokesperson for the UK foreign office said it continues to pursue
all diplomatic avenues to end the violence.