UK Suppressed Warnings of Sudan Genocide to Protect UAE Ties, Parliamentary Committee Hears

The British government deliberately suppressed intelligence and derailed international action to shield the United Arab Emirates from accountability during the genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in Sudan, a parliamentary committee has been told.[1][3]

In devastating testimony delivered to the House of Commons International Development Committee on Tuesday, war crimes investigator Nathaniel Raymond detailed how the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) repeatedly ignored warnings about an impending massacre in the city of El-Fasher.[2][6]

Raymond, the executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, testified that British officials prioritized "economic, security, and diplomatic relationships with the UAE above preventing the intentional starvation, forced displacement, and the genocidal slaughter" of non-Arab tribes.[1][3]

The city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, fell to the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in October 2025 after an agonizing 18-month siege.[4][5]

While the United Nations initially reported 6,000 deaths in the first six days of the city's collapse, Raymond's lab estimates that the total death toll between October and November 2025 reached at least 60,000—a figure he noted is equivalent to six times the death toll of the Srebrenica massacre.[4][5]

The Yale lab had provided the UK government with nearly 70 reports and at least 25 private briefings between July 2023 and September 2025, tracking the RSF's siege through satellite imagery, open-source intelligence, and witness accounts.[4]

Despite this mountain of evidence, Raymond alleged that British policymakers treated the staggering death toll as a "political problem" to be managed rather than a preventable atrocity.[1][5]

The testimony revealed that the FCDO possessed mobile phone tracking data linking facilities in Abu Dhabi and Addis Ababa to RSF-controlled territory, suggesting a clandestine weaponry pipeline.[2][3]

However, rather than confronting the UAE directly, FCDO officials reportedly admitted they were facing "significant private pressure" from Abu Dhabi.[2][3]

In a striking abdication of diplomatic responsibility, British officials allegedly asked Raymond's private university lab in May 2024 to publicly leak the sensitive tracking data themselves, implying the UK government could not release it due to Emirati pressure.[2][4]

That same month, FCDO personnel reportedly told civil society groups and humanitarians that they could only raise the alarm about El-Fasher's imminent collapse once, warning them that they risked being accused of "crying wolf" if the city did not immediately fall.[1][4]

Raymond argued this approach demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of atrocity prevention during a protracted siege, noting that the UK's position as the "penholder" for Sudan at the UN Security Council made it the international community's "best hope" for stopping the slaughter.[1][2]

The policy failure reportedly spanned multiple UK administrations, implicating both the previous Conservative government and the current Labour government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer.[3]

Raymond specifically criticized current Foreign Secretary David Lammy, noting that Lammy hosted a Sudan donor conference in London in April 2025 while remaining publicly silent as the Zamzam displacement camp outside El-Fasher was bombarded by advanced weapons systems.[1][5]

The UAE has consistently denied supplying the RSF with weapons or other support, despite mounting evidence cited by multiple international bodies and UN experts.[1][4]

Following the fall of El-Fasher, the RSF has continued its campaign, with survivors reporting mass rape, sexual enslavement, and the systematic burning of bodies to conceal evidence of atrocities.[1][5]

Raymond urged the UK Parliament to establish an independent atrocity early warning board and a dedicated prevention center across all government departments to ensure intelligence is not suppressed for diplomatic convenience in the future.[4]