Visible from space, Sudan's bloodied sands expose a massacre of thousands
73 comments
·November 1, 2025shmageggy
JumpCrisscross
China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, (EDIT: the UK, indirectly) and Egypt have each also supplied weapons into this conflict [1]. Presumably due to Sudan’s position on the Red Sea. (China and the UAE seem to be alone in supplying the RSF, though.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023%E2%80...
hulitu
You forgot US and UK.
pdabbadabba
Got evidence that they supplied weapons? GP’s Wikipedia article does not seem to say that they did (apart from an unclear reference to US military aid, which I don’t think refers to US military aid to Sudan specifically).
JumpCrisscross
I didn’t know British weapons made it to the RSF. Wow. Have American weapons been used in the war?
dzhiurgis
How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet? They’ve been laundering everything for ages, esp Russian oil. How are they so immune to this?
JumpCrisscross
> How come dubai hasn’t experienced any sanctions yet?
The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland. (Qatar is trying to copy, but clumsily.)
They buy American weapons and financial assets, making them influential. They’ve also established themselves as a logistics hub in an important logistics channel to the West and Asia. (They also pitch their balancing effect on Saudi Arabia skillfully.)
vjvjvjvjghv
Also invested in soccer clubs.
nixass
> The UAE has crafted itself as a new Switzerland
And whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that's all you need to know about that person
ponector
And Qatar is sponsoring and hosting Hamas. Everyone looks the other way, where billions of dollars are.
nradov
The UAE is pretty good at playing both sides so they always come out ahead. They act as a key diplomatic intermediary and host a major US military base which is essential to projecting power in the region.
culi
Sudan is the 3rd largest producer of gold in Africa but it remains the poorest country in Africa because the companies that exploit those resources are never Sudanese.
The RSF got their weapons by acting as mercenaries for the UAE to fight against the Houthis in Yemen. Fighting as a mercenary is pretty much the only reliable source of income for many people in the country.
cm2012
Modern Belgian congo
culi
Just wanna plug the most thorough and useful video I've seen on the history of this conflict. The US, Russia, and many other players are more heavily involved in this conflict than is often discussed in media. It breaks down the specific ways many international players are profiting from the conflict and helps makes sense of the motives driving it
inshard
Sudan has multiple forces at play right now. There’s the Islamic Arabs committing genocide on the non-Arabs. The RSF, largely composed of Arab nomadic groups (evolving from the Janjaweed militias), has been accused of systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, such as the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit. These attacks involve mass killings, rape, and village burnings.
There’s also the Islamic Arab monarchies (RSF) vs the Muslim Brotherhood (SAF).
The common denominator is the Islamic Arab presence from Islamic conquests. Sudan’s ethnic tensions trace back to the 7th-century Arab-Islamic conquests, which Arabized the northern Nile Valley, creating a dominant Arab-Muslim elite that marginalized non-Arab, indigenous groups in the periphery (e.g., Darfur’s Fur, Masalit, and Nuba).
prosper0
UAE backed RSF's doing.
wslh
There is another article on that topic: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/31/sudans-latest-...>
dotancohen
[flagged]
wslh
Whataboutism fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
tensor
The silence from the west on what's going on in Sudan is deafening. It's a completely fair question to ask why, when people are so vocal for Palestine? Why not Sudan?
Throwing out "whataboutism" every time someone dares ask a question like this is a fallacy in itself, intending to distract from the question of why genocide in places like Sudan are so thoroughly and utterly ignored and even buried.
fortran77
I presume there will be protests at Columbia University?
exe34
I'm constantly impressed that we are a civilisation that can look down from space and see this kind of barbarism.
card_zero
"Visible from space" used to mean "by astronauts". If high-resolution sensors are allowed, then the term applies to things like a tree and a car, and doesn't signify much.
Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
freddie_mercury
"Analysis by the Yale School of Public Health Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL), which has been tracking the siege using open source images and satellite imagery, found clusters of objects “consistent with the size of human bodies” and “reddish ground discolouration” thought to be either blood or disturbed soil."
The "visible from space" here is clearly dumb click bait from The Telegraph.
formerly_proven
It's probably more about being able to easily find and identify the massacres on satellite images and less about being able to see even a discarded tissue on them once you zoom in.
tbrownaw
> Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take photos in person.
That sounds slow and expensive.
Configure0251
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.”
PeaceTed
Having a foot in both the future and the past. Or at least I wish it were in the past.
lazide
Murder is timeless (apparently).
elephant81
Yes, the ISS as a sadistic Christof
alephnerd
Sadly, yet another bloody chapter of the Abu Dhabi (al Nahyan) - Doha (al Thani) feud that has been going on since the 2011 coup attempt [0], which itself is part of a longer multi-generational blood feud going on between the royal families [4]. The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Balkans are all burning because of this saga [1].
The UAE backs the RSF [2] (formerly known as the Janjaweed of the Darfur Genocide), and Qatar supports the Sudanese Army [3]
[0] - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/united-arab-emirates-pala...
[1] - https://lobelog.com/doha-and-abu-dhabis-incompatible-visions...
[2] - https://www.wsj.com/world/how-u-a-e-arms-bolstered-a-sudanes...
[3] - https://www.africaintelligence.com/eastern-africa-and-the-ho...
[4] - https://gulfif.org/changing-alignments-in-the-lower-gulf/
ch4s3
The bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible. While the UAE deserves plenty of blame here, the Qataris are as usual up to their elbows in other people’s blood.
JumpCrisscross
> bargain the US has made with Qatar continues to prove itself as conceptually flawed and generally terrible
They buy our weapons and financial assets. We get base. I’m not sure we’ve ever particularly cared about what anyone is up to in Africa. Yemen became of interest because it was fucking with the Red Sea.
ch4s3
Destabilizing the region, working with Hamas, facilitating terror financing, working with Iran, and a bunch of other stuff should concern us. There’s plenty of flat sand to park aircraft on without doing business with those filthy slavers.
fakedang
You think the Abu Dhabi Qatari rivalry began in 2011? 1700s more like it.
RemainsOfTheDay
[dead]
tipst
[flagged]
vladgur
[flagged]
TechSquidTV
Ya you know the answer to that. Remember there are between 1 and 3 MILLION Muslim detainees in the Xinjiang internment camps in China.
recroad
GTFO with that "real" genocide line. There are atrocities everywhere in this world. The difference is whether your country is funding it and providing political cover for it. In one case they are not, and in the other they are. In the case they are, there is legitimate and justified outrage.
random9749832
"I am going to attempt to delegitimize the killing of children by acting like I care about this other conflict."
null
jellojello
[flagged]
vladgur
Is the best you can do a personal attack? Disagree with what i said? explain why. Attacking me personally shows your problems not mine.
krapp
>I doubt we will hear "Death Death to the RSF" or demands to end the genocide in el-Fasher from the college kids and tik-tok influencers any time soon.
You're probably right. It's unfortunate that acts of genocide like the one ongoing in Gaza need to go viral on social media for many Westerners to even be aware of them, much less care.
Perhaps more effort should be put towards raising awareness of other genocides like the genocide in Gaza.
> ...the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accused of backing the RSF with supplies and mercenaries...
And also helping to launder Hemedti's gold via Dubai. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-resources/ex...