The United Nations’ top court on Monday dismissed a case accusing the United Arab Emirates of fueling genocide in Sudan by supporting paramilitary forces in the country’s ongoing civil war. The court said it “manifestly lacks jurisdiction.”
The International Court of Justice did not rule on the allegations made by the Sudanese government, but by a 14-2 vote, it declined to issue the provisional emergency measures against the U.A.E. that Sudan had requested. By a 9-7 vote, it officially removed the case from its docket, according to a summary of its decision.
Both Sudan and the Emirates are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention, but the U.A.E., when it signed the treaty in 2005, opted out of a key clause that allows countries to sue each other at the International Court of Justice, based in The Hague.
In March, Sudan asked the court to take up its case, alleging the Emirates had violated the Genocide Convention by arming and funding the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group that is fighting the Sudanese military.
At the initial hearing last month, Sudan urged the court to impose several preliminary orders requiring the U.A.E. to halt actions that could amount to genocide against the Masalit people in the western Darfur region, and to end any further assistance to the R.S.F.
The Emirati government rejected the claims, saying Sudan had failed to present credible evidence and arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction.
“Quite simply, today’s decision represents a resounding rejection of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ attempt to instrumentalize the Court for its campaign of misinformation and to distract from its own responsibility,” Reem Ketait, a senior official at the Emirati foreign ministry, said in a statement sent to The New York Times after the court’s decision.
The international court said in its summary that it was “precluded by its statute from taking any position on the merits of the claims made by Sudan” but that it was “deeply concerned about the unfolding human tragedy in Sudan.”
Khalid Ali Aleisir, Sudan’s minister of information and the official government spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Rapid Support Forces grew in part out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, which in the 2000s helped Sudan brutally suppress a rebellion in Darfur. That conflict prompted a different world tribunal, the International Criminal Court, to indict the longtime dictator, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2009. The military overthrew him a decade later, but he has not been turned over for prosecution.
The current war in Sudan began in April 2023, when the R.S.F. began clashing with Sudan’s military. Since then, the conflict has led to widespread hunger and famine, displaced nearly 13 million people and caused tens of thousands of deaths.
Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes and gross violations of human rights. The paramilitary group, led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, and its allies, have been accused of committing ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide against the non-Arab Masalit ethnic group. The army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has been accused of using chemical weapons and indiscriminately targeting civilians.
As the war raged, it drew in regional and foreign actors.
The U.A.E. in particular has run an elaborate covert operation to back the R.S.F., supplying powerful weapons and drones, treating injured fighters and airlifting the most serious cases to one of its military hospitals, according to a dozen current and former officials from the United States, Europe and several African countries.
The U.A.E. last September rejected reporting by The Times that it was using relief operations by the Emirates Red Crescent at a base in Amdjarass, Chad, near Sudan, as cover for smuggling weapons to the Sudanese paramilitary and operating drone flights to guide the fighters.
Last week, Emirati state media reported that authorities had foiled an attempt by Sudanese military officials to smuggle weapons to the Sudanese army through an airport in the Emirates.
The conflict has intensified in recent weeks and months, with the military consolidating its grip on the capital, Khartoum, and recapturing the city’s main international airport.
The paramilitary forces have solidified their control over Darfur. Last week, the group killed more than 100 civilians in an attack on the southern city of Nahud and looted markets and pharmacies, a doctors’ group said. The R.S.F. also targeted the airport and several other civilian facilities in the eastern city of Port Sudan over the weekend, according to the army.
Abdalrahman Altayeb contributed reporting from Port Sudan.
