The war in Sudan: A twisted story

«The road was full of corpses, you had to jump over them to continue along», Amira, a displaced mother of four recalled when describing her escape from the besieged Sudanese city El Fasher to reporters of the Qatari global media network Al Jazeera. «These scenes still haunt me at night, I often wake up shivering remembering what I saw on the way.»

In October 2025, the agricultural town in Western Sudan rose to inter­national notoriety, when it became the stage for the most gruelling episode yet of the Sudanese Civil War. The war pits the Sudanese army (SAF) against a para­military force – the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with both sides vying for control over the country. The RSF had been expanding the territories under its control in Western Sudan since the beginning of the war in 2023 until only El Fasher remained as the last strong­hold of the army. The RSF besieged the city for over a year.

When the defence in El Fasher finally collapsed, reports by local journalists as well as analysis of satellite imagery by investigators of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale School of Public Health indicated that RSF fighters committed large-scale massacres against the civilian population. Videos posted by RSF fighters themselves cor­rob­orated these reports. Because of a commu­ni­cations blackout, only limited information emerged from El Fasher and so far no inde­pendent body has been able to offer a precise death toll. The Yale Public Health Lab concluded that the «RSF has system­atically killed and disposed of a number of objects consistent with human remains likely in the tens of thousands.» The massacres happened in broad daylight, according to The Guardian pools of blood and mass graves were visible on satellite images of the city. The killings were reportedly ethni­cally motivated, and as a UN commission investi­gating the events in the months following the RSF takeover concluded, there were «hall­marks of genocide» to be found in El Fasher.

Two weeks after the massacre, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated: «We warned that the fall of the city to the Rapid Support Forces would result in a blood­bath. So, none of us should be surprised by reports that since the RSF took control of El Fasher, there have been mass killings of civilians; ethnically targeted exe­cutions; sexual violence including gang rape; abductions for ransom; widespread arbitrary detentions; attacks on health facilities, medical staff and humanitarian workers; and other appalling atrocities.»

However, when reading the Emirati newspaper Al-Khaleej, one could get a different impression of what had happened in El Fasher. Let’s look at an article on the fall of El Fasher: It calls on the inter­national community to «ensure that those responsible for the atrocities are brought to justice», and that «the sides killing each other are subject to inter­national humanitarian law.» There is the «necessity of both sides of the war to exercise comprehensive self-control.» Further­more, both the «Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces disquali­fied them­selves from constituting the future of the country.»

In the UAE, most media organisations are either state-owned or owned by the ruling family. All media organisations must obtain a government-issued licence, submit all publications to censorship authorities, and include official material in their reporting. According to Mohammad Ayish, professor of Communications at the American University of Sharja, Emirati media "serve as a powerful voice of national identity and govern­ment orientation." Al-Khaleej is the focus of this text because of its standing as the first Emirati newspaper ever. It is published in Arabic. Although technically privately owned, it is still «heavily influenced by the government», as has been stated by the inde­pendent US non-governmental organization Freedom House.

While the above article may give the impression that the UAE is genuinely concerned about civilian suffering, it subtly attempts to blur questions of responsi­bility. The article calls on both sides to constrain them­selves. Of course, both the RSF and the Sudanese army have committed various atrocities over the course of the war. Yet in the case of El Fasher where the RSF went on a rampage of unparal­leled violence it is simply absurd to demand self-control from both sides.

The UAE’s role in the war in Sudan

Why does the Emirati news­paper present the events in this way when all available evidence suggests that the perpetrators of the massacres were RSF fighters?

The answer to this question lies in the United Arab Emirates’ role in the war in Sudan: The country is the RSF’s main supporter. The UAE not only provides substantial financial assistance to the RSF, it has also become increasingly clear that the RSF receives regular arms shipments coming from the UAE. Although Emirati officials deny any such allegations, media reports by the BBC and the New York Times as well as the study «Lineages of Genocide in Sudan» published by Sudan expert Alex de Waal, director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University in Boston, have found proof of Emirati arms ship­ments. Additionally, Sudanese gold is almost exclusively exported through the UAE, with all major gold mines in Sudan under RSF control.

However, beyond funding and arming the RSF, there is another crucial aspect of the UAE’s support. The outcome of the war hinges on how the UAE and its dominant actors are perceived on the global stage. Is it a conflict between two estranged generals? A civil war? Or a proxy war? Who should sit at the table when peace is being negotiated? Who deserves inter­national recognition and support? Whoever controls the prevailing narrative will hold considerable power over any potential cease­fire or post-war power arrange­ment. The UAE clearly realised this and is dedicating itself to shaping the narrative according to its interests. This article will explain exactly how this process works.

Blurring the truth

Thanks to the internet, access to information — whether true or false — is more widespread than ever before. This has profound implications for war propaganda. Social media plat­forms allow govern­ments to promote and amplify disinfor­mation with almost no constraints or effective fact-checking mechanisms. Highly targeted and personalised content makes it possible to influence large audiences by integrating disinformation into entertain­ment and daily life rather than promoting it in a political context.

The battle over narratives has moved to the digital space. The issue of modern war propaganda is there­fore a matter of concern beyond Sudan. As studies have shown, this is also an urgent issue across Europe, where various states have experienced Russian disinfor­mation attempts. Similarly, democracies around the world, such as the UK, the US and Australia have encountered disinfor­mation campaigns from domestic or foreign actors.

According to «Spotting disinformation: Six tactics used to fool us», a research article by the European parliament, one effective strategy to spread disinfor­mation is to flood the zone with multiple conflicting accounts of a given event. When the consumers are unable to tell which version is correct, they might give up on trying to under­stand this particular event altogether. In the long term, this tactic can erode trust in media and democratic institutions and lead to apathy. The US State Department has identified this tactic to be a core pillar of Russian propaganda and disinfor­mation efforts. Academic studies have also started to pay attention to this particular disinfor­mation tactic: One study notes that «a disordered information ecosystem has consider­able consequences for democracies».

The roots of the war

Bearing this in mind, let’s return to the war in Sudan. The current conflict originated in 2011. That year, a wave of protests known as the «Arab Spring» swept across the Middle East, overthrowing multiple regimes. Sudan was no exception, with protesters also taking to the streets.

For Sudan, the year’s defining event however was the secession of South Sudan. As a result, Khartoum lost three quarters of its oil revenue which led to exacerbated financial problems. Anger about economic mis­manage­ment, rising prices and unabated authoritari­anism culminated in a new wave of protests in 2018. This time, the army – and other forces, including the RSF – sided with the protesters and conducted a successful coup in April 2019, removing long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir from power after three decades. A Transitional Military Council (TMC) was established with army leader Abd al-Fattah al-Burhan in command and RSF commander Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known under his nom de guerre Hemedti, as deputy.

The TMC was established to oversee a two-year transitional period to civilian rule. However, the protests continued with people demanding that the military hand over power to civilian representatives. Ultimately, the army partially conceded to these demands, and in August 2019, a joint military-civilian council, the Transitional Sovereignty Council, was established.

The power-sharing agreement was unstable from the outset. In October 2021, the democratic transition came to an abrupt end when the SAF and the RSF seized power in another coup, thereby excluding civilians from the government.

While the SAF and RSF joined forces in over­throwing the transitional govern­ment, there already existed some rivalry among them as they wrestled for the financial resources flowing in from the Gulf. The SAF viewed the growing influence of the RSF with apprehension. Further­more, the two forces disagreed on the modalities of their eventual merger. These tensions continued to simmer and erupted into armed conflict on April 15, 2023.

However, these events did not occur in a vacuum. Several foreign actors had a stake in the direction Sudan was taking, one of them being the UAE. The UAE identified the need to maintain its influence in Sudan in order to stave off Iranian encroach­ment, keep vital shipping lanes in the Red Sea open and prevent itself from being encircled by Iran-aligned actors.

A second dimension lies in the regional struggle for hegemony involving Turkey, Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt as well as the UAE. As in other countries, these actors have tried to increase their own influence by supporting local actors they expect to hold on to power eventually. This cocktail of economic interests, struggle for regional dominance, and rivalry with neighbouring states had already led the UAE to intervene in various countries, such as Libya or Yemen.

With its fragile institutions and centralised govern­ment, Sudan posed an easy target for the type of foreign meddling that the UAE is known for. When the Sudanese treasury found itself in dire straits following South Sudan's indepen­dence, the UAE provided substantial aid. In return, SAF and RSF troops participated in the 2015 invasion of Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The RSF's involvement led to a close relation­ship that soon developed between Emirati leaders and RSF commander Hemedti. Eventually though, the UAE eventually lost trust in al-Bashir and backed the SAF and RSF when they seized power in 2019. After the coup, the UAE supported military actors within the transitional council at the expense of civilian representatives.

With the outbreak of the war in 2023, the alliance of the UAE and Saudia-Arabia crumbled, and the two states suddenly found them­selves supporting opposing factions with the UAE standing by the RSF and Saudi-Arabia backing the SAF. Not just that – most regional actors as well as – even if reluctantly – the inter­national community tend to side with the govern­ment and the SAF. This constel­lation means that the UAE finds itself in an increasingly isolated and exposed position. Atrocities like the massacres of El Fasher add to the discomfort of Emirati leaders. The conflict in Sudan and the support they provide are not just a matter of foreign policy for the UAE, they are key to the country’s perception and reputation abroad. This makes it all the more important to create and promote a compelling narrative of the war that casts the decisions and actions of the UAE in a positive light. Because the UAE are an autocratic country with harsh censor­ship regulations – Reporters without Borders ranks the UAE 158^th out of 180 countries on press freedom – there is perhaps no better place to glean the state-approved narrative of the Sudanese conflict than Emirati newspapers.

Omission and confusion

How does this work exactly? To understand this, let’s go back to what happened in October 2025 in El Fasher. Evidently, there was not a doubt in the mind of UN High Commissioner Türk as to who was responsible for the suffering in El Fasher. When Al-Khaleej reported from El Fasher that «women who fled the city reported killings and systematic rape», the article included a different part of Commissioner Türk’s speech at the UN Human Rights Council than the one quoted above: «There has been a lot of pretence and perfor­mance and too little action. One must stand up against these atrocities – a display of naked cruelty used to subjugate and control an entire people.»

Türk’s clear incrimination of the RSF was entirely left out. Instead, the focus was on the lack of intervention by the UN. In Al-Khaleej’s narrative, the fall of El Fasher was not a story of massacre and human suffering, but rather one of inter­national inaction and complacency. The question of immediate on-the-ground responsibility was not touched but rather shifted to the broader question of the role of the inter­national community. The central role of the RSF and the support provided to it by the UAE were simply omitted. The attempt to obscure responsibility was given credibility by the selective quoting of reputable sources such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

When the UN sent a mission to El Fasher to gather evidence on the massacre, the mission concluded in its report that it had found «hallmarks of genocide». However, Al-Khaleej claimed that the purpose of the mission was to «endeavour to determine the identity of the perpetrators of the violations from among the two warring parties in El Fasher». Once again, Al-Khaleej presented both parties as equally culpable for the suffering of Sudan’s civilian population.

Clearly, Al-Khaleej is trying to present the conflict as being fuelled by two equally objectionable parties that are both responsible for their share of crimes. Attention is then shifted away from the city and onto the inter­national community’s failure to inter­vene in El Fasher. This framing enables Al-Khaleej to sidestep the uncom­fortable question of who was responsible for the massacres.

Based on this framing, readers may be left uncertain and confused about what actually happened in El Fasher. This becomes more dangerous when considered alongside a second key component of the reporting, which seeks to cast doubt on information emerging from Sudan in general. This relates back to the disinfor­mation tactic explained by the European Parliament above.

A curious example is an article in Al-Khaleej on disinfor­mation in the conflict, boasting the headline «The Truth of the Circulating Picture of Corpses from El Fasher. What is the Story of its Falsification?» The article is based on a segment from the «Truth or Fake» programme broadcast by the French network France 24. According to Al-Khaleej, the programme investigated the origins of an image from El Fasher, which purported to show satellite imagery of a pile of human corpses. Following the fall of the city, these images went viral amassing more than 15 million views online. However, France 24 debunked the image, revealing that it was actually from 2023 and depicted a herd of grazing cattle.

Al-Khaleej’s article quoted a German researcher as saying that «misleading information constitutes a huge problem in Sudan» and that «both warring sides continually spread their respective narratives». A British expert inter­viewed was quoted as being concerned about the fake image making people doubt information coming out of Sudan. In the original quote on France 24, the same expert asserted that the «footage of genocide is real», but this part was again left out in the quote provided by Al-Khaleej. Similarly, the France 24 broad­cast featured multiple other satellite images related to the massacres whose accuracy it ascertained by verifying them indepen­dently. Not a word about those images could be found in the piece by Al-Khaleej.

A reader relying solely on Al-Khaleej for information about El Fasher would in a first step be sceptical about who was responsible for the massacres before being told that hardly any information in the context can be trusted. In combination, the reporting obscures the roles of important actors like the RSF and the UAE and causes readers to be sceptical of other sources. What point is there in reading up on the war if all you could possibly encounter is misleading information and narratives pushed by the warring parties? Tragically then, Al-Khaleej’s feigned concern about disinfor­mation is a fine example of how disinfor­mation works to under­mine trust in information and journalism. Al-Khaleej and the media are therefore one tool the Emirati govern­ment uses to promote its own narrative about the war in Sudan and restrict information that could be harmful to its reputation.

The UAE’s effort to control the narrative about the war centers on making the conflict seem intractable and complex. It tries to create the impression that neither party is better or more worthy of support and thus deflects attention from the atrocities committed by the RSF. But even more importantly, it seeks to sow doubts about the reliability and accuracy of information in general. By spreading misleading information or taking data out of context, they contribute to a frustrating experience for anyone earnestly trying to inform them­selves. Over longer periods of time, this frustration can lead news consumers to feel apathy and give up.

In modern conflicts and times where news about war and conflict are available almost in real time, controlling the narrative is just as crucial as is success on the ground. Being able to influence how a conflict is perceived and talked about means controlling what people hold to be the truth. Disinfor­mation and war propaganda have changed irrevocably with the advent of the internet and social media. The example of Emirati disinfor­mation in the context of the Sudan conflict illustrates how flooding the zone with multiple contradicting stories is a viable strategy to seize control of a narrative, influence public opinion, and erode trust in media institutions.

Amira, who witnessed RSF fighters committing mass rapes in broad daylight, paid them a ransom of five million Sudanese pounds – roughly equivalent to 7 000 Swiss Francs – to be allowed to leave the city. While walking with her five children to Tawila, the next town 70 kilometres away from El Fasher, she saw RSF fighters killing their victims with knives. However, if you read Al-Khaleej, you would be unaware of the RSF’s involve­ment. You would not know that the RSF committed the massacres in El Fasher. Nor would you ever know that the Emirati govern­ment is footing the bill.