Sudan conflict: Marco Rubio calls for international action to cut weapons supplies to RSF

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called for international action to cut off the supply of weapons to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who are accused of mass killings in el-Fasher.

At the end of a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada, Rubio said the RSF had committed systematic atrocities, including murder, rape and sexual violence against civilians.

Sudan’s army accuses the United Arab Emirates of propping up the RSF with weapons and mercenaries sent via African nations. The UAE and the RSF have repeatedly denied these allegations.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army since April 2023, when a power struggle between their leaders erupted into all-out civil war.

Rubio’s comments are some of the most outspoken so far by the Trump administration about the war in Sudan and the actions of the RSF, but it is not clear how much impact they will have.

A previous US-backed proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire in Sudan has already been violated by the RSF, even though they agreed to it last week.

El-Fasher was captured last month by the RSF after an 18-month siege, meaning they now control all of the cities in the vast western Darfur region.

Only a small fraction of the population has managed to flee the city, where massacres are said to have take taken place. Piles of bodies on the ground and blood-stained earth are visible from space in satellite imagery.

Non-Arab groups in the wider Darfur region are being systematically targeted by the RSF in what amounts to genocide, according to the US and humanitarian groups.

At the talks near Niagara Falls on Wednesday, America’s top diplomat said women and children had been targeted in acts of the most horrific kind by the RSF in el-Fasher.

Rubio told reporters: “They’re committing acts of sexual violence and atrocities, just horrifying atrocities, against women, children, innocent civilians of the most horrific kind. And it needs to end immediately.

“And we’re going to do everything we can to bring it to an end, and we’ve encouraged partner nations to join us in this fight.”

However, Rubio stopped short of publicly criticising Abu Dhabi, in spite of evidence that the Gulf state is the RSF’s main arms supplier, presented in investigations by the international media that the UN has found credible.

The Trump administration is working for an end to the war together with the UAE, as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who are allies of Sudan’s military-led government, collectively known as the “Quad”.

“I don’t want to get into calling anybody out at a press conference today, because what we want is a good outcome here,” Rubio said on Wednesday, but added pointedly: “We know who the parties are that are involved [in weapons supply]… That’s why they’re part of the Quad along with other countries involved.”

In September, the Quad jointly proposed a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to civilian rule.

The RSF waited until it had captured el-Fasher before announcing that it was agreeing to the truce. Sudan’s army says it objects to the UAE’s presence in the Quad but will still consider the proposal.

In the meantime, there has been no let-up in the fighting.

The secretary of state rejected the paramilitary group’s attempt to blame the killings on rogue elements, saying this was false and the attacks were systematic.

Asked by the BBC about his assessment of the likely scale of atrocities, he said the US feared that thousands of people who had been expected to flee el-Fasher were either dead or too malnourished to move.

He said the RSF, lacking its own arms manufacturing facilities, relied on outside support, and called for countries supplying weapons to stop.

In response the RSF issued a lengthy statement denouncing what it called “all biased statements against them”.

The paramilitary group repeated denials that it does not receive support from external parties and said it did not accept attempts to scapegoat it in order to cover up the army’s rejection of the truce.

“The party that has rejected all ceasefire initiatives and refused to engage in them is the army affiliated with the terrorist Islamic Movement,” it said, “while our forces responded in good faith officially announcing their approval. Yet to this day we have not received any reply from the US side. So, where is the other party and where is its response?”

The joint G7 statement also condemned surging violence in Sudan, saying the conflict between the army and the RSF had triggered “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis”.

To date, more than 150,000 people have been killed and about 12 million have had no choice but to flee their homes.

The flow of weapons into the country during this two-year-long civil war has been analysed by various experts.

Amnesty International says it has found evidence of weapons manufactured in Serbia, Russia, China, Turkey, Yemen and UAE being used in Sudan.

The smuggling route is often via the UAE, through to Chad, then into Darfur – according to a leaked report by UN experts.

The UAE in particular is accused of providing arms and support to the RSF, who in turn are accused of using the UAE as a marketplace for illicit gold sales.

On Wednesday, Rubio pointedly said assistance to the RSF “isn’t just coming from some country that’s paying for it – it’s also coming from countries that are allowing their territory to be used to ship it and transport it”.

He also said he did not want to “diminish” the involvement of other actors in the conflict, saying “that includes potentially the Iranians, at least money and weapons being flown into the other side”, meaning to the Sudanese army.

All parties deny these allegations.

A fortnight ago, the UK government came under fire from its own lawmakers following allegations that British-made weapons were ending up in the hands of the RSF, who were using them to commit atrocities.

In response to one MP’s demand to “end all arms shipments to the UAE until it is proved that the UAE is not arming the RSF”, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said at the time: “The UK has extremely strong controls on arms exports, including to prevent any diversion. We will continue to take that immensely seriously.”

There has been a UN arms embargo on the RSF’s stronghold of Darfur since 2004, but it has not been extended to the rest of the country despite calls from human rights groups.