Foreign Office failed to act on warnings of genocide due to ‘pressure’ from emirates, Yale human rights investigator will tell a parliamentary select committee
The British government had received intelligence that Ethiopia appeared to be supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan’s civil war as far back as 2024 but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a parliamentary committee will hear
In May 2024, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, that “significant private pressure” from the UAE meant the UK would not publicly divulge information linking Ethiopia and the emirates to their support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
Ethiopia’s role in Sudan’s civil war did not become public until early this year. It continues to deny involvement
In testimony to a parliamentary select committee on Tuesday, Raymond will allege that the UK government was more interested in preserving relations with the Emiratis than averting mass atrocities in Sudan
The Commons international development committee is investigating the UK’s response to atrocity prevention after reports in the Guardian about the FCDO’s response to the RSF seizing the city of El Fasher, last year
Raymond will also focus on what he describes as the UK’s “failed efforts to prevent the mass killing” of tens of thousands of people during the RSF’s genocidal massacre in El Fasher
His testimony will include details of how a senior FCDO official attempted to downplay the huge death toll in El Fasher for “political” reasons
After El Fasher fell to the RSF, following an 18-month siege, Raymond, director of Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), privately briefed the international development committee that at least 60,000 civilians had been killed
An FCDO atrocity-prevention official contacted Raymond to ask if the figure was too high
Raymond responded that his number did not include deaths from famine or the RSF’s bombardment of the city during its siege
“I explained the math. I stated that, in reality, the number of people that the RSF systematically killed after capturing the city could have been higher,” said Raymond in written testimony to be presented to the commitee
“The FCDO official and I discussed numbers further. I came to believe that this estimate of at least 60,000 people killed by the RSF was a political problem for the FCDO.”
Based on three years of encrypted messages, internal meeting notes, memos and phone records between the HRL and FCDO, Raymond’s testimony will also reveal how on 26 September 2025, a British UN official “expressed despair about the lack of any possible action by the Starmer government as the city was about to fall” – amid intelligence indicating that mass atrocities were inevitable
Raymond’s revelations of longstanding Ethiopian involvement in Sudan’s war relate to 15 May 2024, when he met FCDO officials in London and shared collated data from mobile phones inside RSF headquarters during discussions on El Fasher’s worsening predicament
HRL had tracked handsets moving between Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, to RSF-held territory in Sudan
Some phones, Raymond will tell the committee, moved from RSF locations to addresses in the emirates, which HRL believes were shell companies linked to the RSF’s deputy commander, Abdul Rahim Dagalo
One phone moved to Abu Dhabi from Addis Ababa in four hours, despite no official air traffic data or scheduled commercial flights matching the route, indicating deliberate attempts to evade detection
FCDO officials requested Raymond to publicly release the phone data analysis linking UAE-based facilities to the RSF because the UK government could not
Raymond will tell the committee: “They told me that the UK was facing significant private pressure behind the scenes from the UAE, limiting its ability to affect the situation
“FCDO personnel suggested that HRL releasing this information could help neutralise these efforts by UAE to prevent the UK from linking them to the armament of the RSF.”
At the time, HRL could not share the telecommunications data publicly because it would compromise
However, HRL secretly shared the data with the US to support sanctions against Dagalo-linked shell companies
Details of Ethiopia’s involvement in the Sudanese conflict became public in February after Reuters reported that Addis Ababa was hosting a camp to train RSF fighters
Reuters said the move was backed by Ethiopia’s close ally, the UAE
Heroism, horror and the ‘pits of hell’: inside the last days of El Fasher
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Ethiopia rebutted the reports, as did the UAE, which has also denied repeated accusations that it funds and arms the RSF
Raymond will tell the MPs that he believes the FCDO prioritised the UK government’s “economic, security and diplomatic relationships with the UAE above preventing the intentional starvation and genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians living in El Fasher”
He will add the UK’s position as “penholder”, or lead country, on Sudan at the UN security council meant its role was vital
“The UK was our best hope at that time for stopping what we believed would become one of the single largest mass-casualty events of the 21st century.”
Referring to Raymond’s evidence, Jennifer Chapman, minister for development, said: “I would be surprised if it was as simple as that, and I think there are many countries playing games in Sudan.”
She also referenced the lack of media coverage of the Sudanese conflict. “It’s an outrage. It gets nowhere near the visibility that it needs until something like El Fasher happens, and then suddenly there’s momentarily some interest
“One of the things we should be doing and [former Cabinbet minister] Anneleise Dodds has been brilliant on this, is really trying to get this into the press, really shine a spotlight on it
“The invisibility of this conflict is creating a permissive culture for those external actors, shall we say, to feel that they can do this and that there is no consequence.”
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