The recent assaults on El Fasher have resulted in mass killings, widespread sexual violence, and starvation used deliberately as a method of war. This marks a grave failure to protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law.
For more than 500 days, El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur outside the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), was encircled and cut off from food, medicine and aid. Researchers from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab have documented ethnically targeted killings, executions, the destruction of civilian neighbourhoods, and widespread sexual violence both during the siege and the recent offensive. Humanitarian workers, including teams from Médecins Sans Frontières in nearby Tawila, describe families arriving severely malnourished, dehydrated, and wounded after fleeing across active frontlines. The fate of more than 260,000 civilians who remained trapped inside El Fasher is now deeply uncertain.
The atrocities in El Fasher are part of a larger war affecting communities across Sudan, including in other parts of Darfur, Khartoum, Kordofan, East and Blue Nile. Millions of people continue to face displacement, hunger and targeted violence. But the scale and intensity of the violence in El Fasher represent a catastrophic escalation, one that demands urgent international action.
European weapons have been used
At the same time that civilians in El Fasher were being attacked, multiple independent investigations confirmed that weapons originally manufactured in Europe have been used by RSF units in Darfur. The Guardian reported in 2025 that British-manufactured armoured vehicle engines, produced by Militec in Wales, reached the RSF after being exported to the United Arab Emirates. Conflict Armament Research traced Bulgarian-made mortar rounds used in Darfur to shipments routed through the UAE. The UN Panel of Experts on Sudan found that European optical targeting components and artillery parts also reached Darfur through re-export channels. Amnesty International reported in May 2024 that Chinese howitzers and air-dropped munitions, also routed through the UAE, have been used in RSF operations. At the same time, several regional and international actors have continued to provide arms, funding, and logistical support to both sides of the conflict fuelling the cycle of violence and undermining efforts toward peace.
The UAE denies supplying the RSF, but the material evidence contradicts these denials. These transfers violate the UN Security Council arms embargo on Darfur. This raises a critical responsibility for the Netherlands and the European Union. In 2023, the Netherlands resumed military exports to the UAE after a previous pause linked to the war in Yemen. PAX arms trade expert Frank Slijper points to the risks of this policy: ‘The Dutch Parliament has raised concerns for years regarding military exports to the Emirates. This is because there is insufficient clarity on by whom, and for what purpose, these military goods are ultimately used. These exports are permitted to continue, however, due to the significant economic interests involved.’
A failure of political will
While the Netherlands currently exports primarily naval components, the core issue is not the category of equipment but the reliability of end-use assurances. European law, the EU Common Position on Arms Exports, requires states to block transfers where there is a clear risk that arms may be diverted or used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law. That risk is now documented. Europe can not condemn mass atrocities in El Fasher while continuing arms exports to countries known to re-export weapons to forces committing those atrocities. This is no longer only a humanitarian failure; it is a failure of policy consistency, responsibility, and political will.
At the same time, the war in Sudan is being financed through the extraction and export of gold and gum arabic. Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) benefit from these economies: RSF-linked networks control significant gold mining sites and smuggling routes across the Sahel, while SAF-aligned business and military elites hold stakes in export companies and state trading mechanisms. Much of this gold moves through the Gulf before entering international markets, including Europe’s financial and consumer supply chains.
Linked to the economic systems that fuel war
Meanwhile, gum Arabic (a key ingredient used by European food, beverage, and manufacturing industries) continues to be sourced from production networks tied into the same conflict economy. These resource flows generate revenue that sustains armed actors and prolongs the war. European markets are therefore not only observers to the crisis, they are structurally linked to the economic systems that help fuel it.
The fall of El Fasher is a defining moment. We call on the Netherlands and the European Union to act:
- Suspend immediately all arms exports to states linked to the transfer of weapons to Sudan and immediately review their risk assessments in light of documented cases of diversion and the clear risk of further atrocities.
- Strengthen end-use monitoring and post-shipment verification, with independent enforcement mechanisms.
- Press for immediate humanitarian access and civilian protection corridors for El Fasher and surrounding displacement sites and regions of Sudan.
- Support ICC investigations into atrocities committed in El Fasher, across Darfur and Sudan at large.
- Strengthen transparency and due-diligence mechanisms in European gold and gum Arabic supply chains, and prevent European markets from sustaining armed actors in Sudan
