UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh in a campaign portrait she shared on X on November 3, 2026, with a statement saying Sudan would be a priority if she became UN secretary general. Photo: Lana Nusseibeh (@Lana_Nusseibeh) via X
A New York Times report on alleged Emirati linked Colombian mercenaries in Sudan has sharpened scrutiny of UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh’s campaign to become UN secretary general.
The Times, in a 5 November story by Declan Walsh that secondary outlets reproduced in full, said United Nations investigators found that the United Arab Emirates hired Colombian mercenaries known as the Desert Wolves to fight alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces. According to that report, a confidential paper submitted to the Security Council last week and obtained by the Times described how an Abu Dhabi based security company with close ties to the Emirati government moved the Colombians into Sudan through territory controlled by Emirati proxies in Libya and Somalia. The Times called the paper the most detailed UN accounting yet of the Emirati role in a war in which the UAE is accused of supplying drones, weapons and mercenaries to the RSF.
Lana Nusseibeh, a minister of state for foreign affairs and a former longtime Emirati ambassador at the United Nations, is a candidate to succeed Antonio Guterres. The Times wrote that she has for years led Emirati efforts to deny her country’s role in Sudan, and that the new UN findings arrive at a sensitive moment for her campaign. In an email to the Times summarized in the same report, Nusseibeh said ending the “terrible conflict” in Sudan would be her priority as secretary general and pledged that if UN investigators identified a foreign power fueling the conflict she would “act on it and engage that State.” A UAE spokesman, the Times said, denied that the country supported any side in Sudan’s war or sought to undermine UN investigations, and told the UN that the security company named in the confidential report had not deployed mercenaries to Sudan or broken Emirati law.
Sudanese and regional voices on X seized on the Times story. Amgad Fareid Eltayeb (@Amgad_Fareid) summarized the Desert Wolves route through Libya and Somalia and tied it to Nusseibeh’s candidacy under the hashtag NoToLana. Sudan Newsroom (@sudan_newsroom) and Nesrine Malik (@NesrineMalik) shared the Times framing that Nusseibeh’s denials now complicate her bid. Human Rights Watch’s Bruno Stagno Ugarte, quoted by the Times, said Nusseibeh had spent over a decade whitewashing Abu Dhabi’s role in Yemen and Sudan while presenting the UAE as a humanitarian actor. Cameron Hudson, a former US National Security Council Africa director also quoted there, said continued Emirati denials “make a mockery” of the investigative mechanisms she seeks to lead.
Nusseibeh herself posted earlier in the week that Sudan would be a priority if she became secretary general, that fighting must stop, that civilians and humanitarian workers must be protected, and that RSF atrocities require accountability. That statement, shared with a campaign portrait, is her public answer to critics who say she cannot police a war her government is accused of fueling. Mereja Media treats both the Times investigation and her denial of Emirati backing for the RSF as contested claims in a diplomatic fight, not as settled fact beyond what the UN paper alleges.
The Times report and Nusseibeh’s email reply leave her candidacy tied to a war she says she would make a litmus test for the next secretary general, as Declan Walsh reported on 5 November.
Sources
- New York Times via DNYUZ full text mirror of Declan Walsh, 5 Nov 2026
- New York Times URL
- Amgad Fareid Eltayeb (@Amgad_Fareid) on X
- Sudan Newsroom (@sudan_newsroom) on X
- Nesrine Malik (@NesrineMalik) on X
- Lana Nusseibeh (@Lana_Nusseibeh) on X, Sudan priority statement
- The National, Nusseibeh on RSF accountability