UN Probe Ties Foreign Drones, Colombian Mercenaries to Sudan War Crimes

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan said in a report released on September 3-4, 2026, that foreign-supplied drones, loitering munitions and an estimated 2,000 former Colombian military contractors are sustaining Sudan’s civil war and have contributed to strikes that may amount to war crimes. The Mission found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) used foreign-supplied drones and loitering munitions in attacks that struck civilian objects, including Yabus Market in Blue Nile state, and separately documented an SAF drone strike on Ad-Da’ein, East Darfur, that killed dozens of people and destroyed a major hospital.

What Happened

Mission Chair Mohamed Chande Othman said external military support “has not brought greater protection for civilians. Instead, civilians are paying the price through attacks on homes, hospitals, schools, markets and places of refuge.” Expert member Mona Rishmawi said investigators “found a transnational chain of networks spanning several countries” that supplied the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with foreign personnel, training, weapons and logistics.

According to the report, up to 2,000 former Colombian military contractors have deployed alongside RSF units in Darfur and Kordofan, where they have operated combat drones, artillery and other advanced weapons. The Mission traced recruitment and facilitation activity to networks running through Colombia and the United Arab Emirates, with Chad, southeastern Libya and Bosaso in Somalia identified as transit points for weapons, ammunition and personnel moving into Sudan.

On the SAF side, the Mission said the force has “significantly expanded its drone capabilities through foreign-supplied systems” since late 2023, enabling strikes far from the traditional front lines. Beyond the Blue Nile and East Darfur strikes, the report cites SAF drone attacks on markets in Abu Zaima and RSF drone strikes on El-Obeid, a hospital and school in Kalogoi, and a displacement site in Kulba. The Mission separately linked foreign support enjoyed by the RSF to its operations in the Zamzam displacement camp and the city of El-Fasher, where it has previously documented mass killings, abductions and sexual violence that it says bear the defining characteristics of genocide.

These are findings of a UN fact-finding body, not a court judgment. The Mission’s mandate is to establish facts and identify alleged perpetrators for future accountability processes; it does not have prosecutorial authority, and its assessments of “reasonable grounds to believe” are an evidentiary threshold used in UN human rights investigations, short of a criminal conviction.

The Systems and the Supply Chains

The report does not name specific drone models supplied to the SAF, but the force is known to operate a mix of imported systems and a locally developed loitering munition. Sudan’s state-linked defense industry unveiled the Safaroog, a one-way-attack drone with a claimed 600-kilometer range, a 3.3-meter wingspan and anti-jamming, anti-spoofing navigation, at the IDEF exhibition in Istanbul. Sudanese officials have described the Safaroog as a direct response to RSF use of the Belarusian Groza-S electronic-warfare system to jam or spoof SAF drones. The Mission’s finding concerns “foreign-supplied” systems specifically, distinct from any domestically produced hardware, underscoring that Khartoum’s drone campaign now draws on both imported and indigenous capability.

On the RSF side, the paramilitary force has for years received matériel and logistical backing that outside researchers, including the Sudan conflict-focused analysis group ACLED, have linked to networks passing through Chad, Libya and the UAE. The Fact-Finding Mission’s report is the first UN-mandated investigation to publicly tie an organized, large-scale contractor deployment, the roughly 2,000 Colombians, directly to RSF combat-drone and artillery operations, rather than describing foreign support only in terms of matériel transfers.

Who Is Involved

The report identifies, by role rather than always by government admission, the United Arab Emirates and Colombia as points of origin for recruitment and facilitation networks, and Chad, southeastern Libya and Bosaso, Somalia, as transit corridors. None of these governments is named in available reporting as having officially confirmed state sponsorship of the flows the Mission describes; the report characterizes the involvement as running through private networks and intermediaries rather than declared government-to-government transfers. The UAE has previously and repeatedly denied supplying the RSF, a position UN Panel of Experts reporting on Sudan has separately disputed in past cycles.

Why It Matters

Sudan’s civil war, which pits the SAF under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has already produced what aid agencies describe as the world’s largest displacement crisis. The Fact-Finding Mission’s report reframes it as an increasingly internationalized conflict in which cheap, widely available drone technology and outsourced military manpower are letting both sides strike deeper into civilian areas than either could reach with conventional forces alone. That pattern, foreign-sourced loitering munitions substituting for a state’s own precision-strike capability, echoes trends documented in other conflicts and raises the same core accountability problem: attack a market or a hospital with an imported drone, and the line between an operator’s culpability and a supplier’s runs through jurisdictions with little appetite for scrutiny.

The report also lands amid a UN Security Council arms embargo that already covers Darfur but that the Mission says is being routinely circumvented. Its central recommendation, extending the embargo to cover all of Sudan and enforcing stricter controls on transfers that risk fueling further violations, would require Security Council action that has repeatedly stalled over the course of the war.

What Happens Next

The Fact-Finding Mission’s reports feed into the UN Human Rights Council’s ongoing scrutiny of Sudan and can inform future accountability mechanisms, including potential referrals, but the Mission itself cannot impose sanctions or prosecute. Whether the Security Council moves to widen the arms embargo, or whether named transit states face any diplomatic consequence, will depend on the same council dynamics that have left the current Darfur-only embargo only partially enforced. Independent verification of individual claims, particularly the scale of the Colombian contractor deployment and the precise supply chains behind SAF’s foreign drone inventory, will likely continue through follow-on reporting from the Mission, the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan, and open-source investigators.

FAQ

What did the UN Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan actually find?

It found reasonable grounds to believe the Sudanese Armed Forces used foreign-supplied drones and loitering munitions in strikes on civilian objects, including a market in Blue Nile state, and documented a transnational network supplying the Rapid Support Forces with foreign personnel, weapons and logistics, including up to 2,000 former Colombian military contractors.

Does the report name which countries supplied the weapons?

It identifies the United Arab Emirates and Colombia as points of origin for recruitment and facilitation networks and Chad, southeastern Libya and Bosaso in Somalia as transit corridors, without asserting official government-to-government transfers by those states.

Is this a criminal finding or a legal conviction?

No. “Reasonable grounds to believe” is a fact-finding evidentiary threshold used by UN human rights bodies. The Mission gathers evidence and can support future accountability processes, but it has no prosecutorial or judicial authority.

What is the Safaroog drone and is it linked to this report?

The Safaroog is a Sudanese-developed one-way-attack drone with a claimed 600-kilometer range, unveiled by Sudan’s defense industry at IDEF 2025. The Mission’s finding concerns foreign-supplied systems used by the SAF; it does not attribute the domestically produced Safaroog to a foreign supplier.

What arms-control measures does the Mission recommend?

It calls for stricter enforcement of the existing Darfur arms embargo, extending that embargo to cover all of Sudan, halting military transfers that risk fueling further violations, and investigating the illicit support networks it identified.

Sources

• Mohamed Chande Othman and Mona Rishmawi, UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, press briefing, September 3-4, 2026 – primary findings and quotes, via UN News and a mirror of the OHCHR press release.
• “UN report finds Sudanese Armed Forces used foreign-supplied drones in attacks on civilian areas,” The National, September 3, 2026 – SAF drone strike details, Yabus Market and Ad-Da’ein.
• “Mercenaries, drone shipments and military technology fuel Sudan war, UN report says,” Middle East Monitor, September 4, 2026 – Colombian contractor deployment, transit-country detail.
• “UN Fact-Finding Mission warns foreign support is fueling Sudan’s war and intensifying civilian suffering,” JURIST, September 2026 – RSF and SAF strike locations, Geneva Conventions framing.
• “UN report says foreign suppliers boosted drone capabilities of Sudan’s belligerents,” Sudan’s Post, September 2026 – corroborating regional coverage.
• “Sudan’s Safaroog Kamikaze Drone Debuts at IDEF 2025 with 600 km Range and Anti-Jamming Capabilities,” Army Recognition, 2025 – Safaroog specifications and background on SAF domestic drone development.