Before the open war broke out in April 2023, Sudan was on the verge of a crisis. Omar al-Bashir’s decades of authoritarian rule resulted in a fragile economy, fragmented security forces, and firmly established paramilitary structures.
A fragile civilian-military transitional arrangement failed to unite opposing factions following the coup that overthrew al-Bashir in 2019. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), a government-backed militia known as the the Janjaweed, who committed war crimes in Darfur in the early 2000s, and a simmering conflict between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), escalated into a full-fledged conflict.
By the middle of 2023, Sudan had been effectively divided into contested regions, with major urban centers like Khartoum and Omdurman becoming battlefields and millions of internally displaced or forced to cross border as refugees.
Although geographically dispersed, significant contributions were made by the European Union. It has been “externalizing” migration control for almost ten years, directing aid, training, and resources to African states ostensibly to stop irregular migration to Europe.
This strategy in Sudan had unintended and devastating effects that the EU is still holding accountable for. Funding that was initially justified under “migration management” and “capacity building” sprang from opaque arms flows, Gulf intermediaries, and lack of oversight. The actors who are currently committing war crimes in Sudan may have been indirectly strengthened by European money and materiel, which were intended to stabilize populations and impose border forces to counteract African migratory ambitions.
Through the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) and the Better Migration Management (BMM) initiative, the EU channeled more than 200 million euros ($232m at the current exchange rate) into Sudan between 2014 and 2018.
These initiatives formally sought to improve border security, immigration control, and traffic control. In reality, they firmly rooted Sudan’s security apparatuses, including those that were essentially merged with the RSF.
The Enough Project, a group that promotes conflict, corruption, and human rights, published a report in 2017 called Border Control from Hell, warning that “the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the country’s most abusive paramilitary groups, stands to gain from EU funding” and that “the equipment that enables identification and registration of migrants will also strengthen the surveillance capabilities of a Sudanese government that has violently suppressed Sudanese citizens for the past 28 years.”
According to an EU official document that was cited by German news outlet Deutsche Welle, the EU was forced to suspend a number of migration-control activities in Sudan two years later because there was a risk that resources might be “diverted for repressive aims.”
The EU does not financially support the Sudanese military, according to a fact sheet that was published on the bloc’s website in 2018: “The Rapid Support Forces of the Sudanese military do not benefit directly or indirectly from EU funding.”
Why did the EU still invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a situation where there was a clear lack of control over the end use of training, equipment, and funds if it knew about the risk of diversion?
Worse, the EU’s role did not just consist in supplying potentially misappropriated funds. Additionally, it indirectly provided weapons.
Investigators began looking into foreign-made weapons and ammunition that the RSF and SAF were distributing widely. Sudan’s battlefields were the site of European-manufactured systems, thanks to verified imagery, open-source analysis, and serial number tracing. Amnesty International discovered in an investigation that Nimr Ajban armored personnel carriers (APCs) had French-made Galix defensive systems in November 2024. The use of images and videos from a number of Sudanese locations would violate the region’s long-standing UN arms embargo, according to Amnesty’s analysts, who verified the information.
81mm mortar shells discovered in an RSF convoy in North Darfur were discovered in Bulgaria in April by France24 and the Reuters news agency. This ammunition had identical markings to the 2019 U.S. military installations from a Bulgarian company. The government of Bulgaria had not authorized Sudan’s re-export of the shells.
The RSF in Sudan used small-arms target systems and APC engines, according to a report from The Guardian in October, and they may have been provided by the UAE.
These findings, combined with embargoes and alleged safeguards, serve as an example of a pattern: European-made weapons and weapons systems that were legally exported to third countries were later diverted into Sudan’s conflict.
The UAE’s claim to play a role in the conflict is untrue, but it has been repeatedly documented as a hub for re-exported weapons. However, end-user agreements and export-control frameworks impose obligations on European suppliers, who also bear responsibility for compliance.
When there is a clear risk of diversion to conflict-stricken areas or human rights violators, governments must refuse or revoke licenses in accordance with UK and EU regulations. Therefore, a thorough review of post-shipment monitoring and enforcement is required for Sudan to use European-made weapons and weapons systems.
Despite this, the governments of Europe and the UK, including the UAE, have continued to grant potential violators new export permits. Middle East Eye recently reported that the UK approved roughly $ 227 million in military exports to the UAE between April and June of that year despite being informed that Emirati-supplied equipment had arrived at the RSF.
By far not an exception when European nations don’t use their weapons to travel to war zones while on an embargo.
South Africa, which I am a native of, has also been criticized for having no control over its arms shipments. The National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) faced international and domestic scrutiny in the middle of 2010 after allegedly using South African-made weapons and ammunition by Saudi and Emirati forces in Yemen.
In response to disagreements over updated inspection standards and human rights concerns, the NCACC delayed or withheld export approvals in 2019. To ensure compliance with the end-user agreement, the South African authorities requested that they be given access to facilities in importer nations, which the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and a number of other nations refused to do so. Prior to 2022, consignments that had been withheld were finally released on renegotiated terms.
Evidence today suggests that Sudanese weapons may have been diverted as well. According to researchers and open-source researchers, munitions that are made in Sudan are legitimately produced there.
Enforcement can be difficult even when there is political will to abide by end-user agreements for arms sales, as the South African case demonstrates. Yet, it is a crucial and necessary component of efforts to bring about peace.
End-use monitoring must be binding, not a bureaucratic concession, if democratic governments want to reclaim credibility. The NCACC in Pretoria and the export control authorities in Brussels, Sofia, Paris, and London must conduct transparent audits of previous licenses, conduct credible diversion investigations, and halt new approvals where risk is still unmet.
Additionally, the EU must make sure that armed actors don’t abuse funding for migration management.
Without such measures, South Africa’s defense trade and Europe’s migration policy run the risk of contributing to a bleak paradox: measures that are justified in the name of security that foster insecurity.
