A security company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is under fire for allegedly forcing Sudanese to fight in wars, in the guise of providing jobs.
In an exclusive documentary report by Hiba Morgan for Al Jazeera, many young Sudanese men are being sent to their deaths daily.
Reporting from Khartoum, Hiba Morgan highlights that dozens of young Sudanese men have managed to return home, but many others are believed to still be in Yemen or Libya fighting wars.
The UAE relations with Sudan are “historical” and Arab support for contemporary Sudan is “necessary”, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash has said.
He was commenting on remarks by the secretary-general of Sudan’s Communist Party Mohammad Mokhtar Al-Khatib who underestimated UAE and Saudi efforts in his country after the army’s ouster of long-time ruler Hassan Al Bashir earlier this year.
“His statement and passive approach to the UAE-Saudi role in supporting stability and peaceful transition in Sudan is regrettable,” Dr Gargash said in a tweet.
He added that Al Khatib’s view might have been based on “old ideological concepts” linked to his communist party.
“Our relations with Khartoum are historical, and the Arab role in supporting Sudan in its current circumstances is necessary,” Dr Gargash added.
On Friday, Al-Khatib, speaking at a seminar in the Sudanese city of Omdurman, accused Abu Dhabi and Riyadh of “conspiring to abort the Sudanese revolution.”
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have stepped up their assistance to Sudan since Al Bashir’s ouster in April in response to months-long street protests against his regime.
In April, the UAE and Saudi Arabia offered $3 billion in aid to help revive Sudan’s ailing economy.
The sum included $500 million in a deposit at Sudan’s central bank to shore up its local pound.
In July, both countries announced dispatching more than 50,000 tons of agricultural nutrients in urgent aid to Sudan to save its farming season.
The former Muslim Brotherhood-supported rule of Oman Al-Bashir has left behind a legacy of “gross failure and instability” in Sudan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s foreign minister Anwar Gargash said yesterday.
“Sudanese people are today facing accumulations of the failed ideology,” Gargash wrote on Twitter, stressing that they were “determined to build a modern system to extricate their country from the tough years.”
On Monday, Gargash arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum the Sudanese capital, where he met senior transitional officials including chief of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdul Fattah Al-Burhan. And Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok.
“Of my impressions during my visit to Khartoum is that the era of Al-Bashir and the Muslim Brotherhood has left behind a gross failure in administering the country, and providing stability and welfare,” the UAE official noted.
The two-day visit was the first to Gargash since the overthrow of Bashir’s 30-year rule in April. In December, the UAE’s chief of staff, Hamad Mohammed Thani Al-Rumaithi, to discuss UAE-Sudan ties.
The UAE recently said it would offer “financial and diplomatic support” to Sudan during the African country’s transitional period.
Header Image Credit: Al Jazeera