Colombian Mercenaries Hired by Sudanese Paramilitary Group to Train Children: 'War Is a Business'

For over two years Sudan has been engulfed in a civil war, which the United Nations describes as one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history.

Since the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began fighting in April 2023, official estimates put at least 150,000 dead and nearly 13 million displaced. The violence has pushed Sudan into extreme levels of poverty, with organizations such as UNICEF reporting cases of severe famine, widespread food insecurity, and numerous human rights violations.

One of the regions hardest hit by the war is the city of El Fasher, located in the Darfur region of southwestern Sudan, which has been under siege for more than 500 days as Sudanese forces and the RSF fight for control of the region.

In that area, according to a recent report by The Guardian, Colombian mercenaries are being hired by the RSF paramilitary group to train fighters, many of them children.

The involvement of Colombian mercenaries was first reported last year by La Silla Vacía, a Colombian news outlet, which found that more than 300 former soldiers had been contracted by a third country to fight in Sudan's civil war. The Guardian also collected testimonies of Colombians admitting they trained child soldiers and were seen in Zamzam, the largest displacement camp in Sudan.

In August, Mohamed Khamis Douda, a spokesman for the Zamzam camp in Darfur, confirmed to the Sudan Tribune the presence of "foreign mercenaries" in the region. "We have witnessed with our own eyes a dual crime: the displacement of our people by the RSF militia, and now the occupation of the camp by foreign mercenaries," he said.

According to The Guardian, the United Arab Emirates, which has been accused of backing the RSF, allegedly hired the mercenaries through private security firms, claims the UAE has denied.

A man identified as Carlos, a Colombian hired earlier this year who asked to remain anonymous, told The Guardian his first task was training Sudanese recruits, most of them children.

"The camps had thousands of recruits, some adults, but mostly children, lots and lots of children," he said. "These are children who have never held a weapon. We taught them how to handle assault rifles, machine guns, RPGs. After that, they were sent to the front. We were training them to go and get killed."

Carlos described the training as "awful and crazy," adding "unfortunately that is how war is."

According to his testimony, he was offered a $2,600‑a‑month contract to travel to Africa. After medical exams in Bogotá, he was flown to Ethiopia, then to an Emirati military base in Bosaso, Somalia. Subsequently, he was taken to Nyala in South Darfur.

Unlike some Colombian whistleblowers who say they were told they would be guarding oil facilities in the UAE, Carlos said he knew he was going to war. According to The Guardian, he only knew his destination was somewhere in Africa.

Experts consulted by The Guardian say Colombia's decades-long internal war against drug cartels and paramilitary groups has produced a surplus of seasoned combatants, many of whom received U.S. military training, making them highly sought after as mercenaries.

"Colombia has more than half a century of active warfare. Its soldiers have not only been trained very well but have also operated in extremely difficult conditions, which makes them combat-ready," said Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for Colombia at International Crisis Group.

Sean McFate, an expert on mercenaries, told the outlet that the use of such fighters became more notorious in the 2010s, when former Colombian soldiers were paid to guard oil infrastructure in the UAE and later deployed to Yemen.

"The UAE sent a lot of Colombian mercenaries to go and kill the Houthi [rebels] and they were successful in that," McFate said.

McFate says mercenaries allow countries to maintain "plausible deniability" in cases where they want to evade international laws or when human rights abuses are anticipated. "When they are captured or killed, you disavow them," he said.

Both Dickinson and McFate argue the issue is rooted in Colombia's system, as many soldiers are forced to retire around age 40 with low pensions and few retraining options.

"If you enter the military at 18 and serve for 20 years, you are not even 40 when you retire. You have another 15‑20 years left of active duty potential," Dickinson said. "The support structure for Colombia's retired military is inadequate, especially compared to what these mercenary job offers represent."

According to Carlos, he left the Colombian armed forces after just over five years of service for better pay as a mercenary. He says he has also left Sudan, citing payment issues. He said 30 men quit alongside him, though "at the same time, flights with 30 more were arriving."

"This is not an honest job; it is not a legal job. But you go for money," he said.