Hundreds of Colombian ex-soldiers have been attracted to Sudan with the promise of bumper Emirati salaries. Instead many died in remote warfare caused by mass murder, rape, famine, and child recruitment.
An AFP investigation has revealed how Colombian mercenaries reached the other side of the world through a network of profit and silence that stretches from the Andes to Darfur.
Using interviews with family members and mercenaries, corporate records and geolocation of battlefield footage, AFP can reveal how they came to strengthen the ranks of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces accused of genocide.
Here are some of AFP’s main findings:
After initially being recruited through WhatsApp, they were brought to Sudan via the UAE, where they underwent a brief training mission
He then traveled to Sudan via at least two routes: one through UAE-loyal eastern Libya, and the other through an airbase in Bosaso, Somalia, where Emirati military officers are based.
Geolocation of footage shot by mercenaries places them on the scene of some of the worst fighting in Darfur
The former comrade of a retired Colombian colonel sanctioned by the United States says the mission was to add 2,500 people to the ranks of the RSF
Since its flare-up in 2023, Sudan has been torn by war between the RSF and the army, driven by competing regional interests including the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Foreign mercenaries have appeared on both sides of the war, most of them from African countries such as Eritrea and Chad.
But none have mounted an operation as sophisticated as the Colombians, sought for expertise in drone and artillery warfare.
In return, according to one former soldier, he was paid $2,500 to $4,000 per month, which was up to six times his army pension.
On December 9, the United States sanctioned four Colombian citizens and their companies for their role in the international network.
But it did not name the Emirati node of the operation: a private security contractor called Global Security Services Group, which is based in Abu Dhabi and claims a client list including several Emirati government ministries.
The UAE has repeatedly denied supporting the RSF. Responding to AFP questions for this story, a senior official said the UAE believes there is “a pattern of disinformation around this war that doesn’t help anyone”.
– Training children in Darfur –
In Colombia, the families of mercenaries suffer in silence. “They still haven’t brought his body home,” said a widow, who was afraid to give her name.
Her 33-year-old husband, a former soldier, died within three months of arriving in Sudan in mid-2024, as the paramilitary campaign to seize western Darfur was faltering. For several months, fighters had surrounded al-Fashar, the army’s last stronghold.
Although the RSF reportedly commands thousands of fighters, most are low-skilled infantrymen, better suited to rape and plunder attacks than the Colombians’ sophisticated long-range operations.
The RSF eventually captured el-Fashar in October, amid evidence of mass killings, kidnappings and rape, “backed by Colombian militias,” according to the United States.
Videos verified and geolocated by AFP show Colombians in and around the city before the takeover.
In one clip, they walk past the burnt ruins of the Zamzam camp while listening to reggaeton. “It’s all destroyed,” says a man with a Colombian accent.
The camp was captured in April; More than 400,000 people fled and more than 1,000 were killed, with survivors saying it was ethnic genocide.
Other images show the same man posing with boys holding assault rifles. In another, his comrades teach a fighter how to operate a rocket launcher.
A militia affiliated with the army says 80 Colombians have joined the siege since August.
Images provided by joint forces spokesman Ahmed Hussein, who was later killed during the RSF attack on el-Fashar, show the bloodied corpse of the same man, identified by his facial features and dental braces, labeled as the platoon’s “commander”.
Sudanese military-aligned officials claim at least 43 people were killed.
Colombia’s foreign ministry says an unspecified number were “tricked” into going to Sudan by the smuggling network.
– bait and switch –
A year after his retirement, a Colombian military drone expert received a WhatsApp message.
Speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, he said it read: “Is anyone experienced interested in working? We are looking for reservists from any force. Details via direct message.”
The 37-year-old man was told by a man, who identified himself as a former Air Force colonel, that the job was in Dubai. he accepted.
Every year, thousands of Colombian soldiers retire, relatively young and with low pensions.
Many have had opportunities in the past to be on Abu Dhabi’s payroll protecting oil pipelines and fighting against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
But on a follow-up call, the veteran was told that Dubai would, in fact, be only a stopover for a few months of training.
He would then be deployed to “Africa” for strategic reconnaissance.
Becoming suspicious, he contacted a friend already working in the Emirates, who warned him that he would likely end up in Sudan. He missed the opportunity.
However, many of his compatriots accepted this and apparently began traveling to avoid detection.
But some fighters were more reckless than others.
Christian Lombana, a mercenary, documented his 2024 trips to Sudan via France and Abu Dhabi on social media.
A TikTok video he posted put him in the desert in south-east Libya, according to the investigative collective Bellingcat.
Eastern Libya is controlled by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who came to power with the support of the United Arab Emirates.
Since the start of the Sudanese war, its territory has been a vital corridor providing arms, fuel and combat aircraft to the RSF.
A few days after his last TikTok post, Lombana’s convoy was ambushed in the Darfur desert.
Footage recorded by a rival fighter went viral, showing Lombana’s documents and family photos scattered in the sand. His passport was stamped as having entered Libya.
– Somalia stop –
Documents and evidence obtained by AFP point to retired Colombian Colonel Álvaro Quijano as the man behind the recruitment.
AFP spoke to his former business partner, former Major Omar Rodriguez, who said that after some ambushes in the desert last year, Quijano “paused” the operation.
This year, mercenaries began transiting through Bosaso in Somalia, where local sources told AFP that a section of a UAE-run military base has hosted platoons of uniformed foreigners who have been transported in cargo planes.
According to UN experts and security analysts, Bosaso is off Somalia’s semi-autonomous state of Puntland, where Abu Dhabi has trained, armed and funded the Puntland Maritime Police Force since 2010.
Emirati military officers were deployed in a separate area of the airport, security sources told AFP.
In November, reports emerged of a massive data leak of Somalia’s e-Visa system, which reportedly exposed the personal data of at least 35,000 people, including Colombians traveling to Sudan.
In response to the allegations, Somali national security adviser Awais Hagi Yusuf told AFP, “We have to investigate, and we are on it,” but stressed the need for solid evidence and good relations with the Emirates.
A senior UAE official told AFP that the UAE “rejects any claims that it has supplied, financed, transported or facilitated the supply of weapons to any warring party through any channel or corridor. These claims are false, unsubstantiated and contrary to the available evidence.”
“The UAE is committed to achieving a ceasefire in Sudan,” the official said.
Accounts from Somalia indicate that the country was being used as a staging post.
Somalia’s Defense Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiki told parliament that the planes were flying from Bosaso “to Chad and Niger, reaching western Sudan”.
A local who frequents the airport for his job told AFP that between March and July, he saw groups of fair-skinned male foreigners, aged between thirty and forty, dressed in military attire, lining up and being herded onto cargo planes.
He said he was often taken to the part of the airport where Emirati officials lived.
Ali Jama, another local resident of Bosaso, said he had seen foreigners in tactical gear being transported on a cargo plane in April.
Satellite imagery of the airport obtained by AFP shows several Ilyushin Il-76D cargo planes operating regularly, similar to other aircraft identified by AFP at airbases in the United Arab Emirates and Libya. Flight tracker data analyzed by AFP also shows intense activity of the same type of aircraft in the airport.
The same model has been linked to RSF supply lines through Chad.
– paper trail –
Last week, the United States sanctioned Quijano and his wife, Claudia Oliveros, as key nodes of an “international network recruiting Colombians” to fight in Sudan.
The US Treasury Department said, “Since September 2024, hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have traveled to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF.” He said that there are also some trained child recruits.
AFP spoke to two former mercenaries who said Quijano’s International Service Agency, also known as A4SI, sent recruits first to the United Arab Emirates, then eastern Libya and then Sudan.
His now-estranged business partner Major Rodriguez apparently founded an employment company, A4SI, in 2017. He partnered with Quijano, whom Rodriguez says had better connections in the UAE.
In 2022, deep in debt, Rodriguez sold his shares to Oliveros, who still owns the firm, according to legal records.
Speaking to AFP, he said it was an attempt to clear his name, accusing Quijano of trying to “put 2,500 people” in Sudan.
AFP obtained 26 documents signed by Colombians in eastern Libya authorizing the Emirate-based company, Global Security Services Group, to pay their salaries.
In a contract seen by AFP, including a confidentiality clause, a Colombian was employed as a “security guard”. The salary was sent through a Panama-registered firm.
Emirati corporate records from 2018 show that GSSG is owned by businessman Mohammed Hamdan Alzaabi. Its website lists it as “the sole armed private security service provider for the UAE Government”.
GSSG recently removed a section of its website that listed three of its clients: the UAE Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Presidential Affairs.
None of the companies listed responded to AFP requests for comment.
In response to questions from this investigation, an Emirati official told AFP: “We categorically reject any claims of providing any type of support to either warring party since the beginning of the civil war, and condemn the atrocities committed by both warring parties.”
The UAE has long denied allegations of supporting the RSF.
But reports from UN experts, US lawmakers and international organizations say the Gulf state has supported the paramilitary force in violation of the UN arms embargo on Darfur.
According to diplomats and analysts, the UAE is interested in Sudan’s gold reserves, fertile agricultural land, long Red Sea coast and strategic position between the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.
Colombian lawmakers recently passed a law banning the recruitment of mercenaries, following outrage over compatriot soldiers being exposed in conflicts over the past few years from Afghanistan to Ukraine.
But it was too late for another Colombian fighter, who was killed in combat in Sudan last year at the age of 25.
“His remains have arrived in Colombia,” a woman who identified herself as his cousin told AFP.
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