On May 15, 2024, officials from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) met with Nathaniel Raymond, a US human rights investigator at Yale University, and told him the UK government was under “significant behind-the-scenes pressure” from the UAE, preventing it from publicly releasing information about Ethiopian and UAE support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.
According to Raymond’s testimony before the UK House of Commons International Development Committee on March 18, the British government prioritized maintaining economic, security and diplomatic relations with the UAE over preventing mass atrocities in Sudan. Raymond said the FCDO even asked him to publicly release phone data linking UAE facilities to the RSF, because the UK government could not do so itself.
Raymond cited data from the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) showing that mobile phones moved from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa to areas under RSF control in Sudan, and some phones moved from RSF locations to addresses in the UAE that HRL identified as shell companies linked to RSF deputy commander Abdul Rahim Dagalo. One phone moved from Addis Ababa to Abu Dhabi in just four hours, even though no commercial flight data matched that route.
The FCDO is also accused of downplaying casualty figures in El Fasher for political reasons. After the RSF captured the city following an 18-month siege, Raymond estimated at least 60,000 civilians had died. An FCDO official contacted him to ask whether that figure was too high, and Raymond said “the number was a political problem for the FCDO.”
Raymond added that on September 26, 2025, a British UN official “expressed despair” that the UK government had taken no action as the city was about to fall. The UK’s role as the lead country on Sudan at the UN Security Council made its position crucial. “The UK was our last hope at that point to prevent one of the largest mass casualty events of the 21st century,” Raymond said.
The FCDO has not commented on these allegations. Ethiopia and the UAE have previously denied backing the RSF.
