Blood on the Trade Route: How Canadian Weapons Are Reaching the UAE’s Genocidal RSF Proxy

For years, Canada has quietly shipped millions of dollars’ worth of military goods to the United Arab Emirates. Today, on the killing fields of Darfur and in the ruins of el-Fasher, some of that Canadian hardware is turning up in the hands of the UAE’s most notorious proxy: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force accused of carrying out genocidal massacres.

The emerging picture, drawn from new Canadian and international investigations, is of a diversion pipeline that runs from Canadian industrial parks and trade shows, through Emirati free zones and arms factories, to RSF units implicated in mass killings, torture and systematic sexual violence.

Rifles from British Columbia, in the hands of RSF fighters

The most recent shock came via a CBC News investigation, which documented weapons bearing the logo of Sterling Cross Defense Systems, an Abbotsford, British Columbia–based arms manufacturer, in the hands of RSF fighters accused of massacres across Sudan since at least 2023.

Still images and video from the frontlines show fighters in RSF camouflage carrying Canadian-marked rifles near sites of documented atrocities, including the assault on el-Fasher, North Darfur, where thousands of civilians have reportedly been killed since late October 2025.

Crucially, CBC’s reporting – echoed in follow-up coverage and expert commentary – notes that it remains unclear exactly how Sterling Cross–branded rifles entered Sudan. Arms-trade specialists interviewed about the findings pointed to a familiar pattern: Gulf states, “especially the United Arab Emirates,” have repeatedly been used as staging grounds to reroute Canadian equipment into embargoed or high-risk conflict zones.

Sterling Cross has declined to answer detailed questions about its export pathways, its current international clients, or whether it has sold directly or indirectly into UAE supply chains.

Armoured vehicles: the Streit Group connection

The gun trail doesn’t stand alone. On 30 October 2025, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) warned that Canadian weapons exported to the UAE are being diverted to the RSF and “fueling genocide in Sudan.”

CJPME cites evidence that armoured vehicles produced by the Canadian-founded Streit Group, now headquartered in the UAE, have been documented in RSF hands during the siege and fall of el-Fasher.Streit’s armoured trucks have a long, controversial history: Canadian and international reporting previously tied the company to transfers into other sanctioned or war-torn states, and in 2016 the RCMP confirmed an investigation into a Canadian Streit subsidiary over possible sanctions violations related to the sale of armoured trucks to Sudan.

According to Global Affairs data compiled by peace groups, Canada exported more than $62 million in military goods to the UAE over the last five years alone, including small arms, ammunition, armoured vehicles and aircraft-related components.In 2024, Canadian exports in these categories to the Emirates topped $7 million – figures Ottawa has continued to defend as compliant with its export-control laws, even as evidence of diversion mounts.

The UAE: hub of a wider illegal arms network

The allegations against Canada sit inside a much larger, darker story: the UAE’s role as the RSF’s primary external armourer.

A major investigation by Amnesty International in May 2025 identified advanced Chinese weapons systems – including guided bombs and artillery – that had been re-exported by the UAE in flagrant breach of the UN arms embargo, and then captured or filmed in RSF use in Khartoum and Darfur. Separate reporting and UN expert assessments have traced a steady flow of Emirati-linked weapons to RSF positions via Libya, Chad and other regional hubs.

Against that backdrop, Canadian weapons showing up with RSF units are not an anomaly; they are another layer in a well-established Emirati supply architecture that has already helped deliver Chinese, Turkish, Russian and European systems into Sudan’s killing fields.

Genocide accusations, and Ottawa’s denial machine

In January 2025, the outgoing Biden administration formally declared that the RSF was committing a new genocide in Darfur, even as Canada stopped short of using the term. Survivors’ testimonies from el-Fasher describe house-to-house killings, the separation and execution of men and boys, systematic rape and the use of mobile banking ransom schemes – all under RSF control and often supported by UAE-supplied hardware.

Yet Ottawa has continued to approve export permits to the UAE, a state that UN experts and human rights groups now plainly describe as a conduit for illegal arms transfers to the RSF.

When pressed, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has insisted that Canada’s arms control regime is “world-renowned,” while confirming that her department is only now examining claims that Canadian weapons have reached Sudan.

Civil society organizations, Sudanese-Canadian groups and a growing number of MPs argue that this is too little, far too late. They are calling for an immediate suspension of all military exports to the UAE, a full investigation into past transfers, and the closure of the so-called “US loophole,” through which Canadian military goods can be exported to the United States unreported before being re-exported onward to Emirati buyers.

What we still don’t know

There are still major gaps. We do not yet have the shipping documents or end-user certificates that would show exactly how Sterling Cross rifles or Streit-linked vehicles moved from Canadian plants and Emirati factories to RSF units in Darfur. Ottawa has not disclosed which Emirati entities received Canadian equipment, on what conditions, or what monitoring – if any – has been done to verify end-use.

But the pattern is becoming harder to deny:

• Canadian-branded rifles documented with RSF fighters.
  
• Canadian-origin armoured vehicles traced to RSF operations in el-Fasher.
  
• A documented Emirati network already caught re-exporting other countries’ weapons to the RSF in violation of UN embargoes.
  

For Dark Box readers, the core question is now unavoidable: how many more Canadian weapons will travel this route – from export permits in Ottawa to warehouses in Abu Dhabi to mass graves in Darfur – before the pipeline is finally shut down?

Key public sources for Dark Box editors
CJPME press release on Canadian arms to the UAE and RSF diversion (Oct. 30, 2025); CityNews and Global News coverage of Canadian exports and el-Fasher atrocities; CBC investigation “Sudanese fighters accused of massacres use Canadian-made rifles” as summarized by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and TV5Monde; Amnesty International investigations into UAE re-export of Chinese weapons to RSF; UN and NGO reporting on the El Fasher massacre and the broader Sudan conflict; historical reporting and RCMP comments on Streit Group’s Sudan dealings.