From Sudan to Libya: Why Colombian Mercenaries Keep Fighting Foreign Wars for UAE Benefits

Dark Box Exclusive

❖ Introduction

Across the deserts of Sudan and the battlefields of Libya, a dangerous trend is unfolding: Colombian mercenaries, hardened by decades of internal conflict, are being deployed to fight wars not their own. Behind this secretive pipeline of ex-soldiers lies a wealthy regional power: the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The UAE has built a sprawling shadow war machine that outsources dirty work to private security firms and foreign fighters — providing plausible deniability while waging proxy wars in Africa and the Middle East.

❖ Sudan: Mercenaries for the RSF

The Sudanese civil war has become a testing ground for the UAE’s covert operations. Over the past year, hundreds of Colombian ex-military personnel have been deployed to Sudan, fighting alongside the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a paramilitary group implicated in mass atrocities, war crimes, and genocide.

Dark Box has verified that up to 380 Colombians have been embedded in RSF operations under a notorious unit called the Desert Wolves, composed of four companies of former Colombian soldiers.

⚠️ In August, the Sudanese Air Force shot down a UAE aircraft carrying 40 Colombian mercenaries and weapons intended for the RSF.

❖ UAE’s Global Recruitment Architecture

The Colombian fighters are not volunteers — they are recruited through a multilayered private military network, orchestrated from Abu Dhabi and Dubai:

• Global Security Services Group, a UAE-based company, signs contracts with Colombian intermediaries.
• Recruits are lured with promises to guard oil fields or train troops — but are flown to warzones like Sudan and Libya.
• Flights often route through Benghazi (Libya), Ethiopia, Chad, and Bosaso (Somalia) — bypassing scrutiny and trapping fighters without return options.

❖ Why Colombians?

Colombian veterans are “the perfect mercenaries”:

• Combat experience: Decades of war against cartels and guerrillas.
• Cheap: Paid $2,600–$6,000/month, far less than U.S. or EU contractors.
• Disciplined: Chain of command experience makes them operationally efficient.

“They leave the military with a war mindset, and that’s all they know,” said a former Colombian sergeant.

Over 22,000 soldiers have retired in Colombia since 2022 — many recruited through WhatsApp and veteran circles.

❖ Libya: Another Front

Libya’s chaos has offered fertile ground for UAE experimentation. The same recruitment networks moving fighters into Sudan are also channeling them into eastern Libya, particularly under Khalifa Haftar — another long-time UAE proxy.

Dark Box has obtained recordings of Colombian mercenaries expressing regret and desperation, realizing too late that they’ve been trafficked into warzones.

“We’re being held captive. This is human trafficking,” one voice note from Sudan stated.

❖ Implications: Shadow Wars, Denial, and Impunity

The UAE’s secret wars destabilize regions and prolong conflicts. By employing mercenaries, it evades international accountability and outsources brutality while posturing as a humanitarian partner on the global stage.

President Gustavo Petro of Colombia has condemned this as “a trade in men turned into commodities to be killed,” but little has changed.

❖ Final Word

The UAE’s use of Colombian mercenaries is not about defense — it is about power projection without fingerprints. The victims are not only the Colombian men caught in deception — but the people of Sudan, Libya, and beyond, whose lives are shattered by war for profit.