As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to visit United Arab EmiratesHuman rights activists are calling on his government to do more to stop the flow of weapons from the UAE to militias in Sudan committing brutal acts of ethnic violence.
While the UAE insists it does not arm the Rapid Support Forces militia, numerous human rights groups say they believe planes intended to carry humanitarian aid from the UAE to Sudan are routinely delivering weapons instead.
Some groups say they believe the shipments include Canadian-made weapons.
“Governments like Canada have an opportunity to demonstrate what the values we talk about so loudly these days are, and what they really mean when put to the test,” said World Vision Canada policy director Martin Fischer.
“Canadian-made weapons and components are fueling conflict in Sudan. And it is not enough for the government to claim that the current arms export regime is world class when the reality shows it is anything but.”
Carney said on October 16 that he would “travel to the UAE on his way to the G20 summit on November 22.”
Civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces broke out in April 2023. The RSF paramilitary force replaced the Janjaweed militia, which carried out the first genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2005.
Both warring sides blocked the flow of humanitarian aid. As a result of the war, more than 30 million people are in desperate need of help, including 16 million children.
“That's over a quarter of the Canadian population in terms of children needing some form of assistance,” Fisher said.
It has also created the world's largest displacement crisis, including those displaced within Sudan and refugees in neighboring countries.
The UAE government has been repeatedly accused of arming the RSF – accusations it has vehemently denied, despite the reports being deemed “credible” by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan.
In its final days in office in January this year, US President Joe Biden's administration said the RSF was committing a new genocide in the Darfur region. Canada has not called the violence genocide.
The US has imposed sanctions on parties in Sudan and companies in the United Arab Emirates accused of supplying government-backed weapons to militants.
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There has been brutal violence over the past month. The World Health Organization said the RSF attacked a hospital in the Sudanese city of El Fasher on October 28, killing hundreds of patients and kidnapping several health workers.
Videos posted online showed hospital rooms riddled with bullet holes.
Yale University's Humanities Research Laboratory reported satellite imagery last week that it said pools of blood were visible in El Fasher, suggesting massacres at multiple locations. Videos online showed dozens of people being killed by militia members.
“Canada is horrified by the El Fasher attacks and condemns reports of the massacre of more than 2,000 civilians,” Foreign Minister Anita Anand wrote on Platform X on October 28.
“We call on all parties to respect international law, protect civilians and immediately allow unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid.”
Anand said she plans to visit the Gulf region in early 2026.
Fischer said ethnic violence produces horror stories.
“They face armed checkpoints, extortion, robberies and really disturbing reports of sexual violence along their escape routes if they escape,” he said.
He argues Ottawa should work with allies to pressure both sides to allow aid and consider increasing its own contribution to aid.
Ottawa has already promised $103 million in aid to Sudan since the conflict began.
Fisher also said Canada should strengthen its laws to ensure export permits prevent Canadian weapons from being diverted to Sudan. Last year, Canadian firms exported $7 million worth of weapons to the UAE.
“We have space and really need to get our own house in order,” he said.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East have called on Ottawa to stop all arms exports to the UAE to prevent them from being diverted to Sudan, and to investigate whether this is already happening.
The group notes numerous reports that weapons used in the conflict were supplied by Streit Group, a company founded in Canada that appears to have moved to the UAE. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Sudanese-Canadian groups have been calling for months for Canada to impose additional sanctions and consider listing the RSF as a terrorist group. Some referenced those calls when testifying Monday before the House Subcommittee on International Human Rights.
McGill University professor John Unruh also said the UAE is receiving “conflict gold” from Darfur in exchange for RSF weapons and may eventually seek land for farming.
“There is a very big economic aspect to this,” he said, adding that Canada could use its membership in the OECD group of mostly wealthy countries to push the UAE to comply with the group's 2016 policy on minerals coming from conflict zones.
“Canada could put coercive pressure on the UAE… to try to cut off gold supplies from Darfur to the UAE, thereby supplying the RSF with weapons,” he said.
Other committee witnesses testified that the Sudanese Armed Forces also commit human rights abuses and may have received weapons from Iran and Muslim Brotherhood affiliates.
Doctors Without Borders says it is seeing both infants and adults with acute malnutrition. The group's Canadian spokesman, Michael Lawson, said it was rare and indicated a widespread siege.
Lawson said shocking cases of sexual abuse and torture had been reported by patients at the group's hospital in Tawila.
NDP MP Heather McPherson last week called on Canada to pressure the UAE to end its support for RSF and support international investigations.
“Canada's inaction has helped fuel these war crimes – and it must stop now,” she wrote in a media statement. “We have blood on our hands and Canada must immediately take the measures it has so far refused to take.”
The federal government has often cited the UAE as a possible investment partner in the field of artificial intelligence.
When asked last Thursday, Anand did not say whether she had raised concerns about Sudan with her UAE counterparts. Instead, she touted the strength of Canada's arms export controls.
“This process is carried out in accordance with the law of the world … and I will say that any violation of this law is carefully monitored and enforced,” she said on Parliament Hill.
“We take this extremely seriously, and this is the work that I have asked my department to do,” she said.
Anand's office said the work includes verifying claims that Canadian weapons are reaching Sudan.
