Colombian mercenaries commit atrocities in Sudan, even though cheaper mercenaries were likely available

Colombian mercenaries recently carried out massacres and rapes in Sudan, but so did Sudanese militiamen they were allied with. Why were the Colombians hired to fight in Sudan to begin with? Mercenaries could be hired more cheaply and quickly from within Africa, rather than going all the way to South America.

Mercenaries are often hired from poorer countries to fight in richer countries. Sudan is much poorer than Colombia. Colombia is 7,000 miles away from Sudan. So the Colombian mercenaries had to be flown in from far away.

Poor countries near Sudan contain nomadic peoples who like killing, such as the Toubou of Chad, a country that is Sudan’s neighbor. In traditional Toubou culture, a boy was not considered a man until he killed someone. Toubou warriors might make ideal mercenaries if the objective were to kill Sudanese people. Sudanese Arab militiamen — the RSF — have been killing members of African ethnic groups, such as the Masalit. Like the RSF, the Toubou also look down on darker African peoples who live in further south in Chad and Sudan. Chad is so poor — historically much poorer than Sudan — that Chadians might be willing to enlist in a militia in Sudan in exchange for being allowed to stay there. 10-15% of Chad’s population is Arab, and they speak the same rustic dialect of Arabic that the RSF militia speaks (Chadic Arabic, the lingua franca of Chad’s capital as well as western Sudan. Half of Chadians speak Chadic Arabic, and thus can communicate with many Sudanese).

Sudan itself is full of young men who are happy to kill for a buck. In the Yemen civil war, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hired thousands of men from Sudan to fight as mercenaries against the Houthis. Yet, the UAE is hiring Colombians to fight in Sudan, which is a puzzling choice It could easily hire Arabs from Chad or Mali to fight in Sudan, or hire Tuareg from Mali or Niger, or Toubou from northern Chad:

Columbian mercenaries who helped carry out atrocities in Sudan were trained at Emirati bases in the country…special military contractors sent Colombians to the north African country to back the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary in their fight against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

The report said that since 2024, Global Security Services Group (GSSG), an Abu Dhabi-based security company, has hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors who deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF.

The contractors had transited through Emirati bases in Sudan to join the fighting….the RSF [committed] genocide, mass sexual assault and other war crimes in Sudan….

A report by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRI) in March corroborated UN allegations of genocide in the Darfur region, saying the RSF waged a campaign of starvation against the city of el-Fasher, razing dozens of farming villages and devastating crop production around the city.

Once the RSF stormed into el-Fasher, its fighters raped, executed and extorted residents in large numbers, according to extensive interviews conducted by Middle East Eye and later reports from the UN and Yale’s HRL….Colombian contractors transited through sensitive UAE military and government facilities before they were deployed to Sudan to support the RSF….

“one contractor who I spoke to told me that he helped to support the training of child soldiers, boys as young as 13-14 years old.”

“In 2011, The New York Times came out with some reporting that [Abu Dhabi ruler] Mohammed bin Zayed had been building a sort of foreign legion of up to 800 Colombian private contractors to be part officially of the UAE armed forces.”

Sudan’s civil war has already killed at least 400,000 people, and led to genocide in the country’s western Darfur region.

Sudan is in the midst of a civil war between Sudan’s armed forces, and a militia called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both sides have killed thousands of civilians using drones. The Rapid Support Forces also have committed genocide against the Masalit people of western Sudan. And they slaughtered tens of thousands of the Zaghawa people, including thousands of children, after seizing the major city of El Fasher. The RSF also has kidnapped thousands of people and held them for ransom, torturing many of them. The RSF has killed at least 250,000 people from non-Arab ethnic groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region.