Sudan: How phone-tracking report exposes foreign support network for RSF

Fresh allegations of foreign backing for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, RSF, have come under renewed scrutiny after a BBC report highlighted claims that mobile phone tracking data linked Colombian mercenaries fighting for the paramilitary group to a wider cross-border network stretching into the United Arab Emirates and other regional transit points. The report centres on […]

Fresh allegations of foreign backing for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, RSF, have come under renewed scrutiny after a BBC report highlighted claims that mobile phone tracking data linked Colombian mercenaries fighting for the paramilitary group to a wider cross-border network stretching into the United Arab Emirates and other regional transit points.

The report centres on an investigation which, according to publicly reported summaries, tracked more than 50 devices used by Colombian fighters in Sudan between April 2025 and January 2026.

The findings were attributed to the Conflict Insights Group, CIG, which said the digital trail pointed to a regional network that helped move personnel into RSF-held areas and provided critical support to the paramilitary group during the battle for El-Fasher in western Sudan.

Africanews, citing the same investigation, reported that the researchers linked the fighters to staging points that included a military training site in Abu Dhabi.  In the video broadcast, the BBC said the investigation identified the phones of dozens of mercenaries and traced them “all the way to a secret war network in Sudan.”

The broadcast further suggests that the data linked the fighters to RSF-controlled territory and to the UAE, which has repeatedly denied accusations that it is backing the RSF.

Africanews reported that CIG described the findings as the first time the group believed it could prove a direct Abu Dhabi-RSF link with certainty, although the Emirati government has maintained its denials.

The allegations are significant because they fit into a broader pattern of recent actions by the United States and the United Nations. On April 17, the US Treasury announced sanctions on five individuals and entities involved in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan to fight on behalf of the RSF.

Treasury said the network had fuelled the conflict and worsened one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises. Reuters separately reported that the sanctions targeted recruiters and companies allegedly involved in moving ex-Colombian soldiers into the war, where they served in both combat and technical roles.

Earlier US sanctions had already pointed in the same direction. In a December 2025 statement, the Treasury Department said hundreds of former Colombian military personnel had travelled to Sudan since 2024 to fight alongside the RSF. It said they served as infantry and artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators and instructors, and took part in battles in Khartoum, Omdurman, Kordofan and El-Fasher. That earlier sanctions action also named a retired Colombian military officer based in the UAE as central to the recruitment and deployment network.

The UN angle has added further weight to the controversy. Associated Press reported last week that a United Nations panel found that Libya’s Subul al-Salam Battalion facilitated the transfer of former Colombian military personnel, as well as weapons and fuel, to support the RSF. According to the report, the battalion controlled key infrastructure around Kufra in southern Libya and helped move fighters and supplies across the border to bolster RSF operations.

That finding suggests the alleged support system for the RSF is not limited to one country or one route, but may instead involve a wider regional logistics chain.  The video broadcast emphasises that El-Fasher is especially sensitive. El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been one of the most fiercely contested cities in the war and a major symbol of civilian suffering.

The CIG findings, as summarised by Africanews, said Colombian mercenaries provided “critical military support” to the RSF during the city’s capture in October 2025. The US Treasury, in separate sanctions on RSF commanders in February, said the group’s 18-month siege and eventual capture of El-Fasher involved ethnic killings, torture, starvation and sexual violence, describing it as a horrific campaign of terror.

Beyond the battlefield claims, the report matters because it reinforces growing fears that Sudan’s war has become deeply internationalised. Reuters reported in February that Ethiopia was secretly hosting a camp to train RSF fighters near the Sudan border, with allegations that the site was financed and supported logistically by the UAE, though Abu Dhabi denied involvement.

While that report concerned a different arm of the war, it pointed to the same wider problem now visible: that outside actors, foreign fighters and covert supply routes may be playing a major role in sustaining the conflict.

 

Background

Sudan’s war began on April 15, 2023, after tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and across the country.

Three years later, the humanitarian consequences are staggering. The UN said this month that Sudan remains the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement crisis, with nearly 34 million people in urgent need of assistance and about 14 million displaced inside the country and across its borders.

WHO has also warned that the war has created devastating knock-on effects in health, disease outbreaks and malnutrition.  For observers in Nigeria and across Africa, the implications of the news go beyond the immediate allegations against one foreign network. The central issue is whether Sudan’s war can still be treated as a domestic conflict when public reports increasingly point to mercenary recruitment, foreign financing, cross-border military support and regional transit corridors.

The investigation would strengthen the case that the RSF’s battlefield strength has relied in part on organised external backing rather than internal mobilisation alone.  The UAE has continued to reject accusations that it supports the RSF, and that denial remains an important part of the story. But with US sanctions, UN findings, and multiple investigations now converging on the role of Colombian mercenaries and wider external networks, the pressure for fuller international accountability is growing.

There is now a hardening consensus among many analysts that without confronting the foreign channels feeding Sudan’s war, peace efforts may continue to fall short while civilians bear the cost.