The Desert Wolves in Sudan — 300 Colombians Extend the RSF's Drone War

In Nyala, South Darfur, the airport runway is no longer just a Sudanese military target. It has become a logistical hub where drones, fuel, paramilitary recruits, and now contractors from Latin America converge. On June 18, El País described a network that no longer concerns only Colombian veterans: it would also extend to nationals from other countries, including El Salvador, integrated into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Sudanese civil war.

This detail matters. Mercenaries do not change a war by their numbers alone. They change it when they bring a rare skill to the right place: piloting a drone, adjusting artillery fire, training recruits, repairing armored vehicles, maintaining a communication chain. In Darfur, where distances swallow poorly coordinated units, a few dozen specialized operators can weigh more than a poorly supplied battalion.

A Long Road to Darfur

The available elements outline a route almost too geographical to be accidental. According to El País, the first identified Colombians would have arrived at the end of 2024 after a stopover in the United Arab Emirates, a flight to Benghazi, and then several days crossing the Libyan desert. The Spanish media also cites two more recent routes: Bogotá-Paris-Dubai-Abu Dhabi, then transfer to the Sudanese theater; or Bogotá-Madrid-Addis Ababa-Bosaso-Koufra-Nyala. In this second route, Bosaso, in Puntland, and Koufra, in eastern Libya, are not just simple stopovers. They are service gates to a war where official roads are too monitored.

Human Rights Watch had already documented, in a report published on May 25, the role of a security company based in Abu Dhabi, Global Security Services Group, in recruiting Colombian contractors deployed alongside the RSF. The NGO estimates that at least 300 Colombians would have been sent as early as August 2024. It bases its investigation on interviews, internal documents, Emirati licenses, geolocated images, and testimonies from residents of El Fasher.

One must remain cautious: not all chains of command are publicly established, and the cited states deny or avoid commenting. But the convergence between the recovered documents, phone data, U.S. sanctions against certain recruiters, and local testimonies makes the presence of these contractors difficult to treat as a rumor.

Why El Fasher and Nyala are the Center of Gravity

On a map, Nyala and El Fasher seem like two points in the vastness of Darfur. On the ground, they serve two different functions. Nyala acts as a rear base and logistical filter for the RSF. El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, has been the political and military lock of the region after an eighteen-month siege. HRW claims that Colombian contractors were present around El Fasher when the RSF took the city in October 2025, an operation followed by massacres, sexual violence, looting, and executions of civilians.

Foreign contributions do not need to be massive to be decisive. In a siege, useful skills are rarely spectacular. They consist of keeping drones in the air, interpreting an image, correcting a trajectory, quickly training fighters who have never handled these systems, and then doing it all over again the next day. It is a non-commissioned officer's job, not that of a hero. But it is precisely this work that transforms a mobile militia into a force capable of striking targets further and more often.

The very name of the group, Lobos del Desierto, is as much a brand as it is a combat unit. In recent African wars, this dimension matters: it facilitates recruitment, gives an identity to the contractors, and blurs the line between private company, state proxy, and paramilitary unit. The Colombian veteran heading to Darfur does not officially carry the Bogotá flag. But his expertise is that of an army that has learned counterinsurgency, reconnaissance, and small unit combat for decades.

The Sudanese War Becomes a Supply Chain War

ACLED published a useful analysis in early June: the Sudanese war is now dominated by the adaptation of aerial tactics and supply chains. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are diversifying their air and drone strikes against RSF strongholds, including Nyala, while seeking to cut off routes coming from Libya, Chad, and other support points. ACLED recorded 17 strikes in Nyala in May, the highest monthly total in the city since the conflict began.

The RSF, for its part, has reportedly evolved from fairly rudimentary loitering munitions to more sophisticated platforms, including Chinese systems and drones capable of striking deep. The organization would use fewer strikes, but more targeted ones, against economic infrastructures, military bases, and air defense systems. It is a logic of strategic harassment: not holding all the sky, but opening it in places when the adversary believes it has closed it.

This evolution explains the interest in foreign operators. A drone purchased or delivered is worth little without a launch, maintenance, guidance, intelligence, and debriefing team. The real military transfer is therefore not just the equipment. It is the procedure. And this is where Colombians, as well as the supposed Emirati instructors, become important.

Over 1,000 Civilians Killed by Drones in Five Months

The civilian cost measures this transformation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated this week that drone strikes had killed more than 1,000 civilians in Sudan between January and May 2026. The Associated Press and Sudan Tribune reported this figure. During the same period, attacks targeted markets, gas stations, cemeteries, displaced persons shelters, and critical infrastructure.

This is not just an increase in casualties. It is a change in pace. The drone allows for strikes without moving a column, without opening a road, without warning through the concentration of armored vehicles. For civilians, this means that a rear area almost no longer exists. For the general staff, this creates a constant temptation: to use the sky to compensate for the exhaustion of infantry.

From experience, this is the most dangerous moment of an irregular war. When both sides lack discipline but gain range, tactical error becomes massacre. In Darfur, the problem is exacerbated by the absence of immediate independent investigation and the fact that many strikes occur far from international observers. Casualty reports arrive late, incomplete, and often politicized.

The Geopolitical Dimension is Secondary, but Not Marginal

It would be convenient to summarize this affair as a proxy war between Abu Dhabi, Ankara, Tehran, Cairo, and other capitals. That would be insufficient. On the ground, Sudanese fight, flee, negotiate, betray, and survive according to their own logics. The RSF is not a mere puppet. Neither is the SAF. But external support modifies their endurance and their way of fighting.

The Latin American network mainly shows that the privatization of war has matured. It no longer consists solely of sending armed guards around an oil site. It provides specialists, instructors, drone operators, logisticians, sometimes under the guise of civilian contracts. The result is a dilution of responsibility: the state denies, the contracting company hides behind a license, the fighter claims to have signed a job, and civilians pay.

The Next Signal to Watch

The point to observe is not just the number of Colombians or Salvadorans in Sudan. It is the route. If pressure on Koufra, Bosaso, Chad, or Nyala forces the RSF to shift its flows to the Central African Republic or Ethiopia, the war will change geography again. The SAF strikes against Nyala already indicate that it understands the stakes: cut the knot, not just kill the fighters.

But cutting a logistical knot without a political alternative rarely produces peace. It displaces violence. In the coming weeks, the rainy season will complicate ground movements, especially towards North Darfur. If drones continue to replace columns, the most vulnerable areas will be markets, secondary landing strips, and camps near supply routes. The immediate danger is not a large announced battle. It is a series of small, poorly identified strikes that will further empty Darfur of its civilians.

Sources

• El País, investigation from June 18, 2026, on Latin American contractors fighting with the RSF.
• Human Rights Watch, report From Bogotá to El Fasher, May 25, 2026.
• ACLED, analysis from June 4, 2026, on the adaptation of drone warfare in Sudan.
• Associated Press and Sudan Tribune, statements from Volker Türk on civilians killed by drones in 2026.