DARK BOX | SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
From Shielding Abu Dhabi to Leading the United Nations: Lana Nusseibeh, Sudan’s Atrocities and the UAE’s War in Yemen
How the UAE’s candidate for UN secretary-general used international institutions to defend Abu Dhabi’s Sudan policy, intervened in European parliamentary scrutiny, and represented a government whose military networks have been documented across Sudan and Yemen.
October 27, 2026 | Dark Box Investigative Report
The campaign to place Lana Nusseibeh at the head of the United Nations is unfolding against an extensive documentary record of Emirati involvement in regional wars and the diplomatic efforts used to protect Abu Dhabi’s international position.
Nusseibeh is not a newcomer to these controversies. As the UAE’s permanent representative to the UN from 2013 to 2024, and subsequently a senior foreign ministry official, she played a direct role in communicating and defending the country’s policies before international institutions.
Her candidacy has consequently raised questions that extend far beyond her diplomatic experience. They concern her rejection of findings about Emirati support for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces, her reported intervention in the European Parliament’s handling of Sudan, and the wider record of UAE-backed armed forces in Yemen.
The evidence is particularly significant because it identifies both military support networks operating on the ground and diplomatic interventions directed at international scrutiny.
In Sudan, Human Rights Watch has documented Colombian fighters moving through Emirati military facilities before joining the Rapid Support Forces. In Europe, reporting has identified Nusseibeh’s personal efforts to influence a parliamentary resolution concerning the same war. In Yemen, rights investigations have repeatedly documented serious abuses involving forces financed, armed, or trained by the UAE.
These are distinct parts of a larger accountability problem: the relationship between a government’s external military operations, the diplomats who defend its positions, and the international institutions expected to investigate the consequences.
1. Lana Nusseibeh: The Diplomat at the Center of Abu Dhabi’s International Defense
Lana Nusseibeh served as the UAE’s permanent representative to the United Nations for more than a decade, from 2013 until April 2024. Her tenure coincided with a period of expanded Emirati military and political involvement across the Middle East and Africa.
During those years, Abu Dhabi supported armed actors in Yemen and Libya, developed a close security relationship with Israel, and became increasingly entangled in the Sudanese conflict.
Nusseibeh occupied a senior position within the diplomatic machinery responsible for representing those policies internationally.
Her subsequent appointment to senior political responsibilities at the UAE Foreign Ministry kept her closely involved in Abu Dhabi’s foreign-policy agenda.
On October 21, 2026, the UAE nominated her to succeed António Guterres as United Nations secretary-general.
The nomination has brought her previous statements, diplomatic interventions, and handling of international criticism into sharper focus.
Reuters reported on October 27 that human rights monitors were challenging her candidacy specifically because of her role in promoting UAE foreign policy and rejecting evidence concerning the country’s contribution to Sudan’s war.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, publicly criticized her categorical rejection of evidence about Emirati support for the Rapid Support Forces.
The criticism concerns a documented aspect of her professional record: her handling of findings that implicated the government she represented.
2. Sudan: The Weapons, Fighters and Military Infrastructure Behind the RSF
Sudan provides the clearest documentary evidence of the scale and consequences of Emirati-linked military support networks.
Since the war began in April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces have carried out mass killings, sexual violence, ethnic persecution, and attacks on civilian communities.
The RSF’s assault on El Fasher in October 2025 produced widespread atrocities. UN investigators subsequently described the violence as bearing the hallmarks of genocide.
Human Rights Watch’s May 25, 2026 investigation, From Bogotá to El Fasher, reconstructed a network that connected Colombian military contractors, an Abu Dhabi-based security company, Emirati military facilities, and RSF operations in Sudan.
The organization identified Global Security Services Group, an Abu Dhabi-based company with connections to senior Emirati officials and the ruling family, as a central participant in recruiting Colombian contractors.
Its investigation drew on interviews with contractors, company records, official documents, verified photographs, and geolocated videos.
The findings documented contractors travelling through the UAE and receiving training at military facilities in Ghiyathi and Al Wathba before deploying to Sudan.
One contractor described being transferred directly to an Emirati military base without ordinary immigration procedures and receiving training from Emirati nationals.
Human Rights Watch also verified footage showing foreign contractors fighting alongside the RSF around El Fasher.
The report identified military equipment originally acquired by the UAE armed forces that later appeared in RSF-linked operations.
These findings establish concrete connections among recruitment, military training, logistical transit, and the Sudanese battlefield. They also identify the companies, facilities, personnel, and equipment that investigators can examine to determine individual and institutional responsibility.
Human Rights Watch concluded that such assistance could constitute aiding and abetting war crimes or crimes against humanity where the applicable legal elements are established.
The evidence does not depend solely on statements by Sudanese officials. It includes independently examined records, witness accounts, geolocated imagery, and military supply information.
3. Nusseibeh’s April 2024 Intervention: Challenging the Findings Before the Security Council
Nusseibeh’s own involvement in the Sudan controversy is documented through her official diplomatic statements.
In April 2024, while serving as the UAE’s permanent representative, she challenged Sudan’s accusations concerning Emirati support for the RSF in correspondence to the United Nations.
Her response rejected the accusations and sought to discredit the Sudanese government’s presentation of the conflict.
That intervention came after UN expert reporting had described evidence concerning arms supplies to the RSF through eastern Chad as credible.
The importance of this sequence is clear.
International investigators had identified grounds for serious concern about the movement of weapons into Sudan. Nusseibeh, speaking for Abu Dhabi, sought to undermine the accusations in the diplomatic forum where those findings were being discussed.
Her response was part of the official record, not a private opinion.
In July 2024, after moving to another senior foreign ministry position, she again rejected findings concerning Emirati assistance to the RSF during a CNN interview.
Her repeated public interventions are therefore central to evaluating her role in the UAE’s international response to scrutiny over Sudan.
They show how Abu Dhabi’s diplomatic representatives contested findings concerning the conflict while independent investigations continued to uncover military supply and recruitment networks.
4. Strasbourg, November 2025: Lobbying to Keep the UAE Out of a Sudan Resolution
One of the most revealing episodes in Nusseibeh’s diplomatic record occurred in Strasbourg.
In November 2025, the European Parliament was preparing a resolution condemning atrocities in Sudan.
Reporting by Euronews, subsequently examined by other outlets, documented Nusseibeh’s personal lobbying of European lawmakers as the resolution was being negotiated.
She met European Parliament President Roberta Metsola on November 24 and remained in Strasbourg during the days preceding the November 27 vote.
Her contacts also included members of the European Parliament involved in negotiating the resolution.
The reporting identified her efforts to influence the document’s treatment of the UAE’s role in Sudan.
The final resolution condemned atrocities but did not expressly name Abu Dhabi as an external backer of the RSF.
That omission was politically consequential.
At a time when investigators were tracing weapons and support networks linked to the Emirates, the resolution addressed Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe without directly identifying the UAE’s role.
The available reporting documents both Nusseibeh’s lobbying and the final omission. It does not establish that she alone determined the text, but it provides a concrete example of her involvement in efforts to shape international scrutiny.
The contrast with subsequent parliamentary action is striking.
On July 9, 2026, the European Parliament adopted another resolution on Sudan, this time explicitly calling on the UAE and other states to stop financing, supplying arms to, or otherwise supporting the RSF.
The later resolution demonstrates that direct scrutiny of Abu Dhabi remained an active issue within the European institution.
The Strasbourg episode is consequently one of the strongest documented examples of Nusseibeh’s role in defending UAE interests within an international political process.
5. Yemen: The UAE’s Armed Partners and the Record of Detention, Torture and Disappearance
The UAE’s intervention in Yemen forms another essential part of the background to Nusseibeh’s candidacy.
Abu Dhabi participated in the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 and built relationships with armed groups operating across the country’s south.
Among those partners were forces associated with the Southern Transitional Council and other local security formations.
Human Rights Watch and other organizations have documented serious violations involving UAE-backed forces, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and abuses in detention facilities.
Investigations have also examined the use of foreign military personnel and contractors in connection with Emirati operations in Yemen.
The significance of this record is not confined to the battlefield.
By financing, training, equipping, and politically supporting armed formations, the UAE became deeply involved in the security structures operating in southern Yemen.
That involvement created questions of responsibility for abuses committed by forces receiving Emirati support.
Human Rights Watch’s 2026 investigation into Sudan explicitly situated the RSF support network within an earlier pattern of Emirati military interventions in Yemen and Libya.
The organization identified recurring features: support for local armed groups, the provision of money and weapons, military training, and the deployment or recruitment of foreign personnel.
The comparison is important because it reveals continuity in methods across different conflicts.
For Nusseibeh, the relevance lies in her role as a senior UAE representative during the years in which these interventions and the associated human rights findings were repeatedly discussed internationally.
Her diplomatic responsibilities did not make her the commander of forces operating in Yemen. They did place her within the government apparatus responsible for representing Abu Dhabi’s position as the UN addressed the conflict.
A serious examination of her candidacy must therefore include the record of UAE-backed forces in Yemen and the way Emirati diplomats responded to demands for accountability.
6. Libya: Another Conflict, Another Arms Embargo
The record extends to Libya.
The October 27 investigation published by Middle East Eye reported that leaked Emirati correspondence from 2015 concerned weapons transfers to UAE-backed forces despite the UN arms embargo.
According to the investigation, some of that correspondence was sent directly to Nusseibeh.
UN investigators subsequently documented violations of the Libyan arms embargo involving the UAE and other foreign governments.
The reported correspondence raises questions about the information available to senior Emirati diplomats during a period of embargo violations.
Receiving correspondence does not, on its own, establish responsibility for ordering arms transfers.
It does, however, provide a specific documentary avenue for examining the relationship between military activities and diplomatic representations at the UN.
Across Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, the broader issue is the same: the UAE’s military relationships have repeatedly generated international scrutiny, while its diplomatic representatives have worked to advance and defend Abu Dhabi’s positions within the institutions responsible for addressing those conflicts.
7. The United Nations Leadership Contest and the Conflict-of-Interest Question
The secretary-general occupies a position fundamentally different from that of a national ambassador.
Under Article 100 of the UN Charter, the secretary-general and international staff must act independently of national governments.
The office carries responsibilities involving humanitarian coordination, conflict mediation, the protection of UN investigative mechanisms, and the presentation of information to member states.
A secretary-general cannot properly subordinate those duties to the foreign-policy interests of the state that nominated them.
Nusseibeh’s candidacy therefore raises a specific institutional question: how would a former senior UAE diplomat handle UN investigations, reports, and decisions involving Abu Dhabi?
The question has already been raised publicly by Sudanese representatives.
Middle East Eye reported that Sudan’s mission to the UN criticized Nusseibeh’s handling of the Sudan conflict and challenged whether she could approach investigations concerning the UAE independently.
Sudanese diplomat Ammar Mahmoud expressed concern that her previous rejection of findings about Emirati involvement would shape her conduct if she became secretary-general.
Reuters also reported criticism from human rights advocates who linked her candidacy to the UAE’s role in sustaining Sudan’s war.
These interventions show that the issue is no longer confined to historical scrutiny of her diplomatic statements.
It has become part of the current international debate over the UN’s leadership and institutional independence.
8. The Political Machinery Behind the Nomination
The UAE’s nomination comes after repeated informal Security Council ballots failed to produce agreement on a successor to António Guterres.
The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council, where each of the five permanent members holds veto power.
That structure makes the positions of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China decisive.
The UAE has developed extensive relationships with these governments through investment, defense cooperation, trade, and diplomacy.
Its candidate’s long tenure at the UN also provides established relationships across diplomatic missions and international institutions.
These are significant channels of influence, but the public record does not establish that particular investments or commercial agreements were exchanged for votes in Nusseibeh’s campaign.
A full investigation of the nomination should therefore examine the campaign’s financing, external consultants, private contributors, political intermediaries, and any commitments made to governments whose support is being sought.
Such scrutiny is particularly important given the history of UAE-linked influence operations conducted through private companies and intermediaries.
The UN’s selection process should not leave undisclosed financial or political relationships beyond examination simply because they operate outside formal diplomatic channels.
9. October 27: Human Rights Critics Bring the Record Into the Selection Debate
On October 27, Reuters reported that human rights monitors were publicly challenging Nusseibeh’s nomination over her role in defending the UAE’s Sudan policy.
The criticism included Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, and participants in a public campaign examining the implications of her candidacy.
Reuters also reported that a UN fact-finding mission had identified foreign weapons, military technology, fighters, and logistical networks—including individuals and entities in the UAE—as factors sustaining Sudan’s conflict.
The campaign against her nomination has brought together Sudanese experts, rights advocates, and survivors of atrocities.
Their concerns focus on whether the UN’s next leader can protect independent scrutiny of a conflict in which the nominating government has been repeatedly identified in international investigations.
The debate is therefore about institutional safeguards as much as diplomatic qualifications.
Conclusion: From Defending a Government to Leading an Institution Charged With Scrutinizing It
Lana Nusseibeh’s candidacy brings together three distinct records.
The first is the documentary evidence of Emirati-linked military support networks in Sudan, including recruitment, training, transit facilities, and contractors deployed alongside the RSF.
The second is the wider history of UAE support for armed groups in Yemen and Libya, where international investigations have documented serious abuses and violations of arms restrictions.
The third is Nusseibeh’s own diplomatic conduct: her official rejection of findings concerning Sudan, her continued defense of Abu Dhabi’s position, and her reported lobbying to remove references to the UAE from a European parliamentary resolution.
Together, these records establish a substantial basis for examining her approach to international accountability.
They also identify the disclosures necessary for an informed UN leadership process: the diplomatic instructions underlying her interventions, the communications surrounding the Strasbourg resolution, the financing of her candidacy, and the safeguards she would apply to matters involving the UAE.
The defining issue is whether the independence required of the UN secretary-general can be demonstrated through transparent commitments and conduct when the candidate has spent years representing a government at the center of serious international human rights investigations.
The answer must rest on documentary scrutiny, not diplomatic assurances alone.
Dark Box | Investigative Report | October 27, 2026
