Sudan Is in Free Fall

A Sudanese journalist, Muammar Ibrahim, stayed behind to document atrocities while thousands fled a genocidal blood bath in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur in Sudan. He was abducted and remains detained. Mohammed Elmakki, an engineering professor beloved for his service to his community, sent his family to safety and stayed behind in El Fasher to tend to his elderly grandfather. When he tried to escape the Rapid Support Forces militants, his brother told us, they caught him in a nearby town and executed him.

These are two stories among the hundreds of accounts of people risking, and often losing, their lives to help others survive amid the rapidly spiraling violence in Sudan. Two and a half years since fighting erupted between the Sudanese military (also called the Sudanese Armed Forces) and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, as many as 400,000 are believed to be dead by some accounts — bombed, murdered, starved.

And now what appears to be the most catastrophic phase of this war is occurring in El Fasher, which has “descended into an even darker hell,” in the words of the U.N. humanitarian affairs coordinator Tom Fletcher.

The militia’s campaign of annihilation has closed in on hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the region, risking the further expansion of one of the greatest mass killings of this century.

When the militia seized El Fasher from the Sudanese Armed Forces last week, it immediately began committing mass executions: massacring hundreds of people at the last functioning hospital, burning people alive, forcing men to dig pits in which they were buried alive, going house to house and shooting those they found, executing people with disabilities unable to flee.

The accounts of terror come from eyewitness survivors, aid groups, satellite imagery and the fighters themselves, who are filming their own atrocities and posting the videos. Much of the work of documenting the carnage has been done by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which analyzes open-source satellite imagery and other data to provide real-time assessments.

In a little more than a week, evidence suggests, the militia has killed and sexually assaulted civilians in numbers that defy comprehension. Its fighters continue to target African indigenous groups, as they have since the war began. Human Rights Watch, citing a U.N. panel, reported that in 2023, the militia targeted Masalit civilians in the West Darfur city of El Geneina and killed 10,000 to 15,000 people there in all.

This slaughter could potentially be stopped if those with leverage would apply pressure on the United Arab Emirates, the primary backer of the Rapid Support Forces’ war machine. Those include American leaders like President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and behemoth companies like the N.B.A. and Disney, both of which have business partnerships with the Emirates.

While so many in Sudan give everything to save even a single person, these global heavyweights have yet to take steps that could save hundreds of thousands of people.

Any serious effort to end the bloodshed in Sudan must start with the United Arab Emirates. Multiple sources — human rights organizations, news organizations, a militia intelligence officer and U.S. lawmakers — have established that it is a key supplier of arms to the paramilitary forces; investigations have traced repeated weapons shipments and drone transfers to Emirati networks. (The United Arab Emirates has called accusations that it is arming the militants “utterly false.”)

The Emirates does more than arm the militia. When the fighting broke out in April 2023, the Emirates reportedly established logistical networks through Chad, Libya, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Uganda to funnel weapons and fuel, and likely also fighters, to the militia. More than a distant sponsor, the Emirates is the operational hub of a regional war economy that is vital to the Rapid Support Forces’ survival.

The Emirates’ goals in supporting the militia, according to experts on the region, appear to be to secure Sudan’s gold supplies and its Red Sea coastline, and to undercut democratic influence in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.

The Trump administration has not taken significant steps to rein in the Emirates — it has not, for instance, appointed a special envoy for Sudan. And the peace talks it has led with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates have done nothing to improve conditions on the ground, given the carnage taking place.

Yet the U.S. government has significant leverage, especially on security; it sells the Emirates billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and has designated it a major defense partner. The administration should withhold any arms sales until the Emirates stops supporting the militants. Bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate that would do just that, and Congress should pass them.

The United States should also greatly increase financial pressure on the Rapid Support Forces by targeting its gold-smuggling and arms-procurement networks, while rigorously enforcing existing sanctions.

It’s true that Mr. Trump’s financial connections to the Emirates — most notably an investment firm backed by its sovereign wealth fund, which invested $2 billion in a crypto currency partly owned by the Trump family — could deter him from applying the necessary pressure. But his Nobel Peace Prize aspirations may motivate him to use his personal connections to help end the violence.

In its efforts to bolster its global standing, the Emirates has made itself vulnerable to other pressures, too. It has built itself into a global sports and entertainment hub, creating a positive image that has masked its repression at home — and now its complicity in genocide abroad. The Emirates depends on those companies, organizations, teams and entertainers to help present the version of itself that it wants the world to see.

Likely no organization holds more potential sway than the National Basketball Association. The league’s partnership with the Emirates includes preseason games in Abu Dhabi and an in-season basketball tournament, the Emirates N.B.A. Cup, which began last Friday. The league should make clear this will be the last Emirates N.B.A. Cup unless the country stops supporting the militants. The N.B.A.’s global prestige gives it immense influence; taking a stand could send a signal far beyond the basketball court, lighting the way for others to follow suit.

Disney, one of the world’s most influential entertainment companies, is planning a theme park in Abu Dhabi, and could also use its voice to effect change. (Various state-backed entities in the Emirates advertise with The New York Times and on the sports site it owns, The Athletic.)

Hanging in the balance is the survival of the many civilians now in hiding, and the hundreds of thousands more who have been displaced in surrounding towns, including 650,000 in Tawila, southwest of El Fasher.

The future of Sudan itself is also at stake. If the Rapid Support Forces consolidates power, the world will have allowed a genocidal militia to seize and hold land with impunity. A collapse of Sudan would destabilize the entire Horn of Africa, drive refugees across the Sahel and into Europe, and embolden other paramilitaries.

Elie Wiesel said, “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” For institutions tied to the Emirates, choosing to act would have an economic cost. Yet the cost of silence, of continuing business as usual, is infinitely greater. It will be measured in lives. It will be measured in more Mohammeds, more Muammars. Standing resolutely with the Sudanese people is the only path forward.