A documentary investigation has uncovered four camps in Libya being used to train and supply Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF), part of an effort to tip the balance in the country's armed conflict with the Sudanese army.
The war pits the Sudanese army, led by Sovereign Council Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. It has raged since April 2023, when a power struggle between the two men erupted into open conflict.
The investigation was conducted by the Dutch media platform Lighthouse Reports, in partnership with Sudan War Monitor, a group of journalists and open-source researchers, and Evident Media, a nonprofit specializing in visual investigations.
It drew on mobile phone data, satellite imagery, posts on TikTok, Facebook and Telegram, interviews with Libyan National Army officers, RSF defectors and sources within the Sudanese army, and data from Conflict Insights Group, a public-interest research firm that analyzed advertising data harvested from cookies — data that users unknowingly share with third-party brokers when they visit websites or use mobile apps.
The allegations have renewed claims that the United Arab Emirates is backing the RSF and that Libya's eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) is involved in Sudan's conflict.
An analysis of phone data from one of the sites, known as “Camp 17,” found evidence that at least two South American mercenaries were present there during the summer of 2025. One device, set to Colombian Spanish, was located at the camp between June 11 and 12, 2025. Another device was set to Argentine Spanish, and used a military-grade phone on Aug. 13, 2025.
Eight RSF defectors still living in Libya told investigators that operations there range from small-scale training activities and transit points in Benghazi to more robust sites in the desert within the border triangle region.
The defectors said the sites included weapons preparation centers, vehicle modification workshops and training camps staffed by LNA personnel and Colombian mercenaries contracted by the UAE. They were expected to return to Sudan to train other RSF fighters using the skills they had acquired in Libya, they said.
One defector said the RSF transported “around 40 or 50, maybe up to 70 or 80” fighters in each group to receive training at Camp 17, from LNA personnel and Colombian contractors.
“RSF is mainly supported by the Emirates, but no one can speak up or ask,” he said.
The investigation also quoted another defector who spent three months at Camp 17 as saying the trainers were neither Libyan nor Sudanese. Their bodies were covered in tattoos, they spoke English, and he believed they were Colombians brought in and paid by the UAE.
The UAE has repeatedly been accused of supplying the RSF with weapons and training. Last year, the Sudanese government told the UN Security Council that Emirati private security companies, including the Abu Dhabi-based Global Security Services Group (GSSG), were behind the recruitment of mercenaries from South America.
In February, a Reuters investigation found a “secret camp” in Ethiopia where thousands of RSF fighters were being trained with UAE funding and logistical support.
Reuters said the camp was the “first direct evidence” of Ethiopia’s involvement in Sudan’s civil war, and the latest sign that the conflict has been sucking in regional powers from Africa and the Middle East. The UAE denied any involvement in the Sudanese conflict and said it was not a party to the fighting in any form.
In May 2025, the Sudanese government decided to sever diplomatic relations with the UAE and declared it an aggressor state.
In May 2025, the Sudanese government decided to sever diplomatic relations with the UAE and declared it an aggressor state. The International Court of Justice later dismissed Sudan's case against the UAE, which had accused the country of violating the Genocide Convention through its support for paramilitary forces in Darfur. The judges ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction and voted to end the case.
