A tense confrontation has played out on the streets of one of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods, bringing international attention back to the United Arab Emirates’ widely documented but consistently denied involvement in Sudan’s devastating 15-month-long civil war. A video circulated online Sunday captured the moment a Sudanese protester shouted accusations at Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and UAE prime minister, as he traveled through London’s Knightsbridge district.
Standing across the street from Al-Maktoum and his security entourage, the protester repeatedly called out: “Emiratis and UAE, they’re killing Sudanese people. UAE is killing people in my country. Stop killing my people.” The confrontation escalated rapidly when a member of Al-Maktoum’s group, who appeared to be Emirati, launched a vicious racist verbal attack against the protester, yelling expletives and calling him a “Black bitch” before moving across the road to confront him directly.
The protester also named UAE president Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in his accusations, shortly after local Emirati media confirmed that the two top UAE leaders had held a closed-door “fraternal meeting” at London’s Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel the previous Thursday. The state-aligned coverage framed the meeting as a demonstration of the “enduring bonds of unity, mutual respect and shared values” that anchor the UAE’s leadership.
The Sudanese man’s accusations align with a growing body of public evidence that contradicts the UAE’s official denials of backing the Rapid Support Forces, Sudan’s powerful paramilitary faction that the United Nations and United States have formally accused of perpetrating genocide in the ongoing conflict. Since war broke out between the RSF and Sudan’s regular armed forces in April 2023, UN independent experts, international human rights groups, and investigative reporting from Middle East Eye have traced consistent arms flows to the RSF facilitated by smuggling networks operating out of Libya, Chad, and the self-declared independent region of Somaliland. Earlier this year, MEE reporting also exposed the use of an Ethiopian military base to funnel support to the paramilitary.
Multiple sources close to Emirati leadership and analysts aligned with Abu Dhabi have tacitly acknowledged the longstanding support the UAE has provided to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who holds extensive hidden property holdings in Dubai through a network of anonymous shell companies. Defenders of the UAE’s involvement have pushed back against international criticism, pointing out that the RSF’s rival Sudanese Armed Forces receives backing from Egypt and Turkey, arguing that singling out Abu Dhabi for condemnation is hypocritical.
The human cost of the conflict reached a new peak in recent weeks when RSF fighters seized el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, the region where the paramilitary has its roots. Witnesses and UN investigators confirm that RSF fighters carried out mass executions, systematic rape, and widespread looting against civilian populations in the city – a campaign UN officials confirmed bears “all the hallmarks of genocide”. The conflict has already spawned the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, with more than half of Sudan’s 48 million people facing acute food insecurity and over 10 million people displaced from their homes.
The London confrontation is not the first time Al-Maktoum has faced controversy during visits to the UK. British courts have previously ruled that the Dubai ruler ordered the abduction of his two daughters, Latifa and Shamsa, after they attempted to escape his control in the UK – Shamsa in 2000 and Latifa in 2018. A 2021 High Court ruling also found that Al-Maktoum had used NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to illegally hack the phones of his ex-wife, Jordanian Princess Haya, and her associates, as part of a campaign of intimidation during their divorce proceedings.
Despite the public confrontation, Al-Maktoum has continued his documented London vacation, posting a message on his official X (formerly Twitter) account Monday that framed family time as the most valuable vacation investment. “Life taught me… that the greatest investment in vacations is not the number of cities we visit… but the number of moments we create with our families,” he wrote alongside a photograph from his trip. “Beautiful memories are happiness and energy that drive us to more work, achievement, and success.”
Western governments, including the United Kingdom, have faced widespread criticism for their failure to publicly challenge the UAE’s role in the Sudan war, with critics linking the silence to extensive economic ties between Abu Dhabi and Western political and business circles.