In the months since Human Rights Watch released its May 2026 report on alleged UAE facilitation of Colombian contractors supporting the Rapid Support Forces, a clear pattern has emerged in the public commentary surrounding Sudan’s war.
A relatively small group of researchers, journalists, and analysts has shaped much of the high-visibility discussion in English-language and policy circles. Examining their institutional roles, joint media appearances, and the relative intensity of their output reveals an asymmetry that Western audiences rarely pause to consider.
Three of the most frequently cited voices hold formal positions inside Human Rights Watch: Laetitia Bader (Horn of Africa director/Deputy Africa director), Philippe Dam (EU director), and Mohamed Osman (Sudan researcher).
Their institutional work has centered on detailed documentation and advocacy on RSF conduct, particularly in Darfur and El Fasher, and on alleged external support linked to the UAE.
The remaining voices operate outside HRW. They are independent analysts, correspondents, and think-tank researchers. A concrete illustration of their collective visibility appears in Al Jazeera English’s widely viewed Start Here episode, an explainer on the Sudan war.
That production features Mahitab Mahgoub, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Hiba Morgan (Al Jazeera’s own Sudan correspondent), Ahmed Soliman, Kholood Khair, Hager Ali, Alan Boswell, and Elbashir Idris as contributors.
The episode traces the conflict’s roots through the Bashir era and the Janjaweed, details RSF violence in Darfur as a continuation of earlier patterns, and identifies the UAE as the RSF’s primary external backer while noting support for the Sudanese Armed Forces from Egypt, Turkey, and Iran.
It does not address the US determination that Sudan's government used chemical weapons in 2024, nor does it examine the March 2026 US designation of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization or the documented networks linking Islamist structures to the SAF side.
Al Jazeera’s editorial approach to regional Islamist movements has long been contested by governments that designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The appearance of this cluster of analysts together in a high-reach English-language production that centers UAE-RSF linkages, while omitting the chemical-weapons findings and the Brotherhood designation, forms part of the observable pattern.
Use of chemical, biological weapons
A measurable difference appears when one examines the chemical-weapons file. In 2025, the United States determined that Sudan's government used chemical weapons in 2024 and imposed sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act; additional measures followed in 2026.
France 24 published open-source findings consistent with chlorine use by Sudanese Armed Forces elements. Human Rights Watch itself noted the France 24 reporting in a relatively brief statement in October 2025.
Yet the volume, specificity, and sustained advocacy devoted to that determination by the same set of voices remains markedly lower than the attention given to the Colombian contractors report and subsequent UAE-focused messaging.
Public searches of articles, interviews, and social-media activity turn up few instances in which these researchers and commentators treated the chemical-weapons findings or the US terrorist designation of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood with comparable intensity or detail.
This is not a claim of coordinated intent. It is an observation about the public record. The English-language HRW report, the Al Jazeera explainer that gathered many of the independent analysts, and the subsequent Arabic-language amplification from HRW’s official account sustain an emphasis on one set of external linkages and one set of atrocities.
General statements acknowledging abuses by both parties appear; detailed, repeated, high-profile work on the SAF chemical file or the Brotherhood designation does not.
The timing adds another layer. The May 2026 report and the intensified Arabic campaign arrived after the US terrorist designation of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood and while chemical-weapons sanctions against the Government of Sudan remained active.
The UAE has long positioned itself against the Brotherhood and against IRGC-linked networks; it publicly welcomed the US designation.
When the most visible human-rights and analytical commentary concentrates pressure on the UAE at that moment, while giving lighter treatment to the designated networks and the chemical findings on the other side, the pattern invites examination.
The public record shows detailed, repeated, high-visibility documentation and advocacy focused on RSF conduct and alleged UAE facilitation.
The same voices and platforms have produced far less sustained work on the US determination that the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons, the subsequent sanctions, or the operational links between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the networks the United States has now designated as terrorist.
This raises a straightforward question that any complete accountability agenda must answer: Why has nothing of comparable depth, length, or intensity been issued regarding the SAF side?
General statements acknowledging abuses by both parties appear. Detailed, resource-intensive reports and sustained advocacy campaigns matching the May 2026 treatment of the UAE-RSF nexus do not.
The disparity is observable in the public record. Explaining it – or correcting it – is a legitimate demand on those who shape the narrative.
A complete accountability agenda would apply comparable energy, documentation, and advocacy to every verified violation and every external facilitator.
The public record of this particular set of voices, and of the joint platform on which several of them appeared, shows that has not occurred.
Readers who rely primarily on English-language coverage, the Al Jazeera explainer, and the panels that feature these commentators may therefore receive an incomplete map of the conflict’s external dimensions and its most serious documented breaches.
Reconsidering that map side by side with the US designations, the chemical-weapons determinations, and the full range of atrocities does not require dismissing any single report. It only requires noticing what has received less attention, and asking why.
The writer is a Kuwaiti analyst and investigative journalist.