[HN Gopher] Visible from space, Sudan's bloodied sands expose a ...
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Visible from space, Sudan's bloodied sands expose a massacre of
thousands
Author : wslh
Score : 198 points
Date : 2025-11-01 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.telegraph.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.telegraph.co.uk)
| wslh wrote:
| https://archive.is/H0WYu
| prosper0 wrote:
| UAE backed RSF's doing.
| wslh wrote:
| There is another article on that topic:
| <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/31/sudans-
| latest-...>
| shmageggy wrote:
| > _...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...
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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.)
| nixass wrote:
| > 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
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _whenever someone is talking fondly about UAE that 's
| all you need to know about that person_
|
| I've heard that line about Qatar, Uruguay, Singapore,
| Malta, Cyprus, the Maldives, and countless other small
| states.
|
| I grew up in Switzerland. Folks like to compare
| themselves to us, mostly due to complete ignorance of our
| actual history and culture.
|
| It's true in part and misses the point in others.
| Geopolitically, however, the observation is sound. Small
| states need a powerful protector far away or to balance
| their position between nearby large states. The latter
| only works in mountainous hellholes and on peninsulas
| (provided your larger neighbor(s) can't blockade you; if
| they can, you need a foreign guarantor with a blue-water
| navy, of which historically there have only been one or
| two at a time).
|
| (You know Switzerland is a weapons exporter, right? To
| the U.S. But also to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Hungary. One
| could almost say that folks who conclude intent from a
| place of ignorance communicate "all you need to know
| about" themselves.)
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I think the connotation of 'being Switzerland' has less
| to do with the modern state of Switzerland and more to do
| with the ... Unsavory things Switzerland has historically
| been a part of.
| esseph wrote:
| It's way more basic than that if you ask the average
| person. "Swiss neutrality/ banking"
| kakacik wrote:
| Most of them are patently incorrect, and most of those
| don't even care to educate themselves since they keep
| repeating cheap stuff they heard from other bright people
| and that's it. How many heard about accepting refugees
| despite being literally surrounded by axis and facing
| starvation of their own people (how many nations would do
| that including _yours_ ), or not-so-secret massive
| collaboration with western allies while on surface acting
| as neutral ie Campione d'Italia, and so on and on).
|
| They were _neutral_ in WWII like ie Spain was, think a
| bit what does it actually means. Not participating in
| conflict in any way. So they accepted both jewish and
| nazi gold or art, and everybody 's else. If you want to
| understand why some of that was kept around after the war
| maybe reading about numbered accounts would enlight you.
| If you actually care to understand history as it
| happened.
|
| Hitler had plans to conquer Switzerland after dealing
| with Russia, he was aware that they were 'most free and
| most armed nation in the world', fiercely independent and
| taking them would cost him dearly not only due to
| terrain.
|
| Literally nobody had come out of WWII with properly clean
| slate, you just need to dig (not even deep) to find
| abhorable stuff on everybody, to different volume of
| course. Swiss have no problem acknowledging their
| mistakes, much more than most other nations.
| smcin wrote:
| The comment merely said UAE has become strategically
| influential in finance, transport (cargo shipping (#5 in
| world), world's busiest international passenger airport),
| tourism. Nothing about being fond.
|
| 5% GDP growth in non-oil. More diversified than Saudi. #2
| globally for being "easy to do business in and with".
| Top-10 in Global Soft Power Index since 2023 [0], rose
| from #18 in 2020. Dubai has become a global influencer
| capital.
|
| Looks like the US is backing UAE as Saudi wanes, and as a
| regional counterweight.
|
| If we're talking about Switzerland, yes it's a federal
| republic with semi-direct democracy, but it also happily
| supplied mercenaries to mainland Europe for several
| centuries.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Also invested in soccer clubs.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| ponector wrote:
| And Qatar is sponsoring and hosting Hamas. Everyone looks the
| other way, where billions of dollars are.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| You forgot US and UK.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I didn't know British weapons made it to the RSF. Wow. Have
| American weapons been used in the war?
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| 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).
| dabber wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2025/oct/28/u...
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| says it was not supplied by US/UK but rather UAE.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| > When we go to see the Emirates, what number on our to-do list
| do you think Sudan is? It is not on our to-do list. What we have
| to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel and onside against
| Iran.
|
| https://www.patreon.com/posts/radio-war-nerd-131258413
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What we have to do is keep the Emirates onside with Israel
| and onside against Iran_
|
| This is so incredibly dumb.
|
| The UAE is a spigot of oil and money. (Secondarily, a massive
| buyer of American goods, services, weapons and financial
| assets.) Sudan isn't on our to-do list because it doesn't
| directly affect American voters. Oil prices and capital do.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| I don't understand what you find dumb. Can you explain what
| you're disagreeing with? Do you think the money that the UAE
| offer precludes all other incentives to ignore mass
| slaughter? Surely by this metric we would be more allied with
| Venezuela than Israel. Or, perhaps, you have not fully
| articulated yourself.
| alephnerd wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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 wrote:
| 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.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _plenty of flat sand to park aircraft on_
|
| Then someone else parks there. Barring a Saudi takeover
| of Qatar, we're stuck there to keep the Russians and
| Chinese out.
| kakacik wrote:
| We just have to keep protecting them and give them
| weapons, otherwise somebody else will do it.
|
| Quite a high moral ground to be on, I tell ya. I know I
| know, realpolitik and all, but then lets stop pretending
| there is some higher ground and treat say china-us
| conflict as something that literally doesn't concern
| Europe at all (seems like US has still military upper
| hand but who knows for how long, seems like China will
| steamroll ya economically/technologically pretty soon).
| Especially given this year developments when we saw that
| US military equipment cannot be trusted, US IT infra
| cannot be trusted and so on.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Qatar already deals with Iran and Russia by proxy.
| Qatar's largest trading partner now is China and Qatar
| supports the one China policy.
| fakedang wrote:
| You think the Abu Dhabi Qatari rivalry began in 2011? 1700s
| more like it.
| hansmayer wrote:
| > The Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and Balkans are
| all burning because of this saga
|
| Balkans, you say?
| jmyeet wrote:
| As always, conflicts are much easier to understand when viewed
| through the lens of materialism.
|
| Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason for
| these conflicts. Those are simply the excuse. It's what's used to
| fuel the fire.
|
| The heart of this conflict is Sudan's gold that's laundered via
| Dubai then Switzerland.
|
| The culpability of Western powers including the US cannot be
| ignored either. The RSF is supplied with diverted arms shipments
| from the West to the UAE.
|
| Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a phone
| call.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Factors such as ethnicity or religion are never the reason
| for these conflicts_
|
| Economics motivates. But these divisions dominate in
| determining magnitude. You don't need genocide to control
| mines, farms and oil fields. (You need labour.)
|
| The dial turns from enslavement to extermination when there is
| deep-rooted fury. That sort of fury can really only be
| channeled on divisions of race and religion. (You need a way
| for poorly-trained, uneducated troops to mostly reliably
| identify the enemy.)
|
| > _heart of this conflict is Sudan's gold_
|
| Why not oil, too?
|
| > _Just like in Gaza the US could stop this at any time with a
| phone call_
|
| This hubris fuels our forever wars, both in trade and
| militarily.
|
| We don't have that influence. If we tried restricting both
| Qatar and the UAE in Africa, we'd put serious economic and
| military interests at stake. Interests American voters care
| about enough that our leaders have even less free rein than our
| geopolitical limits circumscribe.
| kbelder wrote:
| >As always, conflicts are much easier to understand when viewed
| through the lens of materialism.
|
| That no doubt does make understanding things seem easier.
| exe34 wrote:
| I'm constantly impressed that we are a civilisation that can look
| down from space and see this kind of barbarism.
| PeaceTed wrote:
| Having a foot in both the future and the past. Or at least I
| wish it were in the past.
| lazide wrote:
| Murder is timeless (apparently).
| elephant81 wrote:
| Yes, the ISS as a sadistic Christof
| Configure0251 wrote:
| "The future is already here - it's just not evenly
| distributed."
| card_zero wrote:
| "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.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _Well, maybe it signifies that nobody wants to go and take
| photos in person._
|
| That sounds slow and expensive.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| "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.
| culi wrote:
| 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
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqIMES53rsY
| culi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Modern Belgian congo
| prox wrote:
| From wikipedia :
|
| On examination of photos and videos of weapons used in the
| conflict that were posted on social media, the rights group
| identified that companies registered in China, Iran, Russia,
| Serbia, and the UAE were associated with the weapons provided
| to RSF.[96] Human Rights Watch reviewed images of show crates
| with markings indicating they were manufactured in 2020 and
| initially acquired by the UAE Armed Forces in through a
| contract with Adasi, a subsidiary of UAE-based weapons
| manufacturer Edge Group. A January 2024 report by the UN Panel
| of Experts on Sudan deemed the UAE's alleged support to the RSF
| as "credible"
|
| According to Business Insider, "The two generals helped Russian
| President Vladimir Putin exploit Sudan's gold resources to help
| buttress Russian finances against Western sanctions and fund
| his war in Ukraine."[108]
| fortran77 wrote:
| I presume there will be protests at Columbia University?
| inshard wrote:
| 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).
| MangoToupe wrote:
| It's worth noting there are islamists on both side. Anyone who
| characterizes this as purely religious or ethnic has a bridge
| to sell
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(page generated 2025-11-01 23:00 UTC)