When flying over Chad, the planes turn off their transponders, disappearing from radar screens. They reappear later on the tarmac of Amdjarass airport, birthplace of Chadian President Idriss Déby, who died in April 2021, not far from the border with Sudan. From June to September 2023, a mysterious aerial ballet of more than a hundred cargo planes linked Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to this desert locality in eastern Chad.
Officially, these Emirati aircraft equip and supply a field hospital built to come to the aid of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians fleeing their country ravaged by the war which has opposed, since April 15, 2023, the regular army of General Abdel Fattah Al- Bourhane to the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo known as “Hemetti”. There is no doubt about the humanitarian catastrophe. With more than 553,150 new refugees from Darfur recorded in mid-Februarythe United Nations warned of the “real perspective” of a growing influx of Sudanese into Chad. On the other hand, the vocation of the small hospital, installed in the desert, more than two days’ drive from the immense refugee camps, was quick to attract suspicion about the motivations of the Gulf petromonarchy which, since the geopolitical turmoil provoked by the “Arab Spring” of 2011, uses his wealth and his military arsenal to create networks and extend his influence in Africa.
“Under the guise of a humanitarian mission, the United Arab Emirates simply rented an airstrip from the Chadian government to deliver weapons to its ally in Sudan », summarizes a manager who wishes to remain anonymous. Weapons, ammunition and medicines, intended for General Hemetti and his FSR fighters, are unloaded in the hangars of Amdjarass before being transferred by trucks to the porous border. The cargoes then take the road to northern Darfur, to Al-Zurrug, a ghostly locality absent from Google Maps, which has become a stronghold of the RSF, which now controls almost half of Sudan.
Abu Dhabi insists on the humanitarian nature of its intervention in the region and completely denies any interference in the conflict which is tearing apart the third largest country in Africa. But these secret operations were corroborated by numerous Sudanese, Chadian and Western sources interviewed by THE World. They are also confirmed by an expert report, addressed to the United Nations Security Council, unpublished, but which The world was able to consult: “Since July [2023]the RSF deployed certain types of sophisticated weapons including drones, howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles, details the document. This new strike force had a huge impact on the balance of forces, in Darfur as in other regions of Sudan, notably allowing the RSF to counter the main asset of the SAF [Forces armées soudanaises, nom de l’armée régulière soudanaise], its aviation. »
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