Human Rights Watch on Monday called on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to publicly challenge the United Arab Emirates’ human rights record and its role in fueling atrocities in Sudan ahead of UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s scheduled visit to Berlin on September 10, 2026.
The visit was expected to include a major investment partnership announcement, alongside a planned meeting between UAE representatives and German arms manufacturers.
Philipp Frisch, HRW’s Germany director, said the German government’s unwillingness to publicly address the UAE’s role in Sudan is “deeply troubling,” particularly given that Germany helped establish the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan in 2023 and hosted a major international conference on the crisis in Berlin in April. Frisch said Germany’s silence effectively provides “a free pass for future abuses.”
The call comes after a UN Fact-Finding Mission report dated September 1 concluded that individuals and entities operating from or linked to the UAE played a significant role in networks involved in recruiting, financing, transporting, and deploying foreign military contractors and providing military support benefiting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The mission has documented RSF war crimes and crimes against humanity. In a separate report released in February 2026, investigators found that atrocities committed during the RSF’s capture of El Fasher bore “hallmarks of genocide.” The UAE has denied providing military support to the RSF.
HRW pointed to its own May 2026 investigation, which presented evidence that Abu Dhabi-based security company Global Security Services Group had since 2024 hired hundreds of Colombian private military contractors deployed to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF. The report found that contractors were present in El Fasher, North Darfur’s capital, in October 2025 when the RSF captured the city. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights subsequently documented widespread killings, rape, and gang rape during the offensive, amounting to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
HRW called on Germany and other EU member states to investigate Global Security Services Group and its CEO, Mohamed Hamdan al-Zaabi, with a view to adopting targeted sanctions, and urged EU countries to impose an EU-wide arms embargo against the UAE and publicly denounce its assistance to the RSF.
The organization also highlighted the UAE’s domestic repression. On March 4, 2025, an Emirati court upheld the convictions and sentences of 53 human rights defenders and political dissidents in the country’s second-largest mass trial. Among those convicted, prominent human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor has been detained since 2017. On June 26, 2025, 24 additional defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment after the court overturned earlier dismissals of their cases. In November 2025, political prisoner Ali Abdullah Fath Ali al-Khaja died in UAE custody, prompting criticism from HRW and the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center. HRW said the UAE imposes severe restrictions on free expression, association, and assembly through its Federal Penal Code and Cybercrime Law, using broadly worded provisions to criminalize peaceful criticism.
Sudan’s attempt to hold the UAE accountable before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) failed on May 5, 2025, when the court rejected Sudan’s request for provisional measures and removed its case alleging UAE complicity in genocide from the court’s list. The court found it lacked jurisdiction because the UAE had entered a reservation to the Genocide Convention’s jurisdictional clause. The decision did not address the merits of Sudan’s allegations.
