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A leading human rights researcher has delivered explosive testimony to a British parliamentary committee, alleging that the United Kingdom failed to prevent a documented genocide that killed an estimated 60,000 civilians in Sudan’s el-Fasher after bowing to behind-the-scenes political pressure from the United Arab Emirates.

Nathaniel Raymond, founding director of the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at the Yale School of Public Health, told the House of Commons International Development Committee on Tuesday that the UK – as the official penholder for Sudan affairs at the United Nations, tasked with coordinating the international community’s response to the crisis – was uniquely positioned to avert what he calls one of the worst mass casualty events of the 21st century. Instead, he says, more than two dozen private warnings and evidence-based recommendations were dismissed, sidelined or ignored to protect London’s strategic economic and diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi.

The crisis in el-Fasher began unfolding long before the October 2025 massacre. In the summer of 2023, the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carried out a genocide that killed tens of thousands of Masalit civilians in el-Geneina, another major Darfur city – a atrocity the U.S. government and multiple leading human rights organizations have officially classified as genocide. Within weeks, researchers and analysts confirmed that el-Fasher, home to long-standing displacement camps for survivors of the 2003–2005 Darfur genocide, was the RSF’s next primary target.

Raymond first briefed the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on the looming threat in July 2023, where he called for urgent UN peacekeeping intervention to stop the impending violence. By April 2024, HRL monitoring confirmed the RSF had begun its full siege of el-Fasher, a city with a population roughly three-quarters the size of the Gaza Strip. HRL leadership concluded that engaging the British government, given its UN mandate, represented the best possible chance to prevent catastrophe.

In mid-May 2024, as the UK drafted UN Security Council Resolution 2736 – a text calling for an unconditional ceasefire in Sudan – Raymond met with FCDO officials in London to present newly compiled evidence: an analysis of public phone records showing regular travel between RSF-held territory in Sudan, UAE locations, Somalia’s Bosaso port, and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa. Subsequent reporting has confirmed that Bosaso’s military base and Ethiopian transit routes serve as key logistics hubs for the UAE to supply the RSF with weapons, military equipment and mercenary fighters. The phone travel data traced directly to Abdel-Rahim Dagalo, brother and second-in-command of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti.

During those meetings, Raymond told MPs, FCDO officials admitted they were facing intense private diplomatic pressure from the UAE that limited London’s ability to act on the crisis. He said British officials asked his independent American research lab – not UK intelligence agencies like GCHQ or MI6 – to publicly release the sensitive phone data to counter the UAE’s covert support for the RSF. Raymond declined the request, noting that public release would expose the tracking system, allow the RSF and UAE to close the security loophole, and eliminate the lab’s ability to predict future attacks. The tracking mechanism was eventually exposed months later when Human Rights Watch published reporting on Colombian mercenaries being trained in the UAE for RSF service.

In follow-up meetings with NGO representatives, FCDO officials made clear that Resolution 2736 was the maximum action the UK was willing to take, and that the text would not include any consequences for foreign state backers of Sudan’s warring parties – including the UAE. Officials also told humanitarians they would only issue one public warning that el-Fasher was on the brink of collapse, for fear of being accused of “crying wolf” if an attack was delayed.

After Resolution 2736 was adopted on June 13, 2024, the RSF paused its attacks on el-Fasher for a brief period. Raymond told the committee that HRL obtained intelligence from a source with direct access to RSF internal operations: the UAE had ordered Hemedti to halt the assault so Abu Dhabi could assess whether the UN resolution would trigger any meaningful political consequences for its support of the RSF. HRL shared this intelligence with the FCDO and urged the UK to prepare punitive measures if the RSF resumed attacks. According to Raymond, the FCDO made explicitly clear that no unilateral or multilateral consequences would be imposed for violating the resolution. Once the UAE confirmed there would be no repercussions, the siege and attacks resumed.

Later that month, Raymond confirmed, the UAE blocked him from speaking about RSF bombing damage in an official UN chamber. In January 2025, he was contacted by staff for then-UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who was visiting Sudanese refugee camps in Chad. Lammy’s team only asked Raymond for a U.S. National Security Council phone number, but he used the call to warn them that the large Zamzam internally displaced persons camp outside el-Fasher – home to more than 500,000 people already facing famine conditions, most from ethnic groups targeted in the 2003 Darfur genocide – was being bombarded with advanced UAE-supplied weapons, and that the attack was a precursor to a full RSF seizure of the camp.

In April 2025, as Lammy hosted a high-profile multinational donor conference for Sudan in London, the RSF stormed and captured Zamzam. Raymond described graphic atrocities: humanitarian and healthcare workers were executed on camera after begging for mercy, women and girls were kidnapped as sexual slaves and systematically tortured, and large sections of the camp were burned to the ground. Despite hosting the donor conference as the massacre unfolded, the FCDO issued no public statement on the fall of Zamzam, and Raymond says HRL is aware of no official UK comment on the atrocity.

By September 2025, HRL satellite imagery analysis confirmed the RSF had built 31 kilometers of earthen berms around el-Fasher, encircling the city to create what Raymond calls a “kill box” to trap and slaughter the civilian population. That same month, a senior FCDO official privately expressed to Raymond that the Starmer government had no intention of taking meaningful action as the city neared collapse. One month later, the RSF launched its final assault and seized full control of el-Fasher. Verified eyewitness accounts, video footage, photos and satellite imagery confirm widespread massacres of unarmed civilians, with survivors reporting summary executions, systematic sexual violence and routine torture at the hands of RSF fighters. Hours before el-Fasher fell, ceasefire talks in Washington collapsed after the UAE refused to address the 18-month crippling siege of the city.

HRL’s analysis estimates that at least 60,000 civilians were killed in the final assault and its aftermath. Raymond told the committee that after the massacre, a senior FCDO Atrocity Prevention official contacted him via encrypted chat to question whether the 60,000 death toll was inflated, then followed up with a phone call. During that conversation, Raymond said, he concluded the death estimate represented a political problem for the FCDO, given its ties to the UAE. The official requested a formal briefing for FCDO and UN officials on the casualty data, but the FCDO never scheduled the briefing, and it never took place.

Raymond emphasized to MPs that the el-Fasher massacre was “arguably the most accurately predicted mass atrocity in human history.” The real-time intelligence provided by HRL and other independent researchers was detailed, timely, granular and actionable enough to allow the UK to develop robust policy interventions that could have prevented the slaughter entirely. He pointed to targeted sanctions against UAE officials responsible for arming the RSF as one minimal intervention that could have disrupted the covert weapons pipeline flowing to the paramilitary group.

The researcher warned that the same pattern of inaction is already repeating itself in el-Obeid, a city in southern Sudan’s Kordofan region that is currently under siege and attack by the RSF. He also called for grassroots accountability for the UAE’s role in the atrocities, urging a public consumer boycott of UAE-linked businesses – including stopping purchases at Dubai and Abu Dhabi airport duty free shops, and highlighting public pressure on Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City football club as a potential catalyst for change.

On a crisp Tuesday in Beijing, young athletes from China and the United States traded serves, laughed over quick points, and built unexpected friendships at the 2026 China-US Youth Pickleball Friendship Tournament, hosted by the University of International Business and Economics. The one-day event brought together 42 American high school students from an Iowa study tour delegation alongside Chinese student players from Shijiazhuang Foreign Language School, turning a casual recreational sport into a powerful platform for people-to-people diplomacy between the two nations.

Organizers of the tournament framed the gathering as more than just a athletic competition: they designed the event to position pickleball as an accessible, informal bridge for cross-cultural exchange, nurturing the next generation of informal ambassadors for China-US relations and laying small, solid groundwork for the long-term development of bilateral ties. Unlike formal diplomatic summits, the mixed doubles format paired Chinese and American players as teammates, forcing collaboration over competition and creating natural opportunities for connection beyond language barriers.

For 18-year-old Zuo Yining, a graduating senior from Shijiazhuang Foreign Language School, that collaboration worked far better than any formal exchange activity he had joined before. Teamed up with a teenage American partner during his matches, he recalled seamless on-court coordination that required barely any verbal communication. “We barely needed verbal communication amid intense rallies. A simple eye contact or gesture was enough for us to figure out when to run and catch the ball together,” Zuo explained.

The experience, he said, has already forged lasting personal bonds that extend far beyond the tournament court. “A single match, a casual meal or small talk can easily bring teenagers close. The US students I met are warm, sincere and outgoing,” he noted. As someone who regularly hosts foreign visitors at his school, Zuo has long kept in touch with international friends he met through past exchange programs via social media, and one of his former American guests is set to return to China this August — Zuo has already extended an invitation for him to stay at his family home. “We have cultural differences, but every teenager here, regardless of nationality, has a warm and open heart,” he added.

Laura Michelle Kelly, the high school teacher leading the Iowa student delegation, shared that every one of the 42 American teenagers on the trip is visiting China for the first time. Following the tournament, the group will spend seven days traveling across both Beijing and Shanghai, exploring the country’s cultural and urban landscapes for themselves. Kelly said she and her students have already been deeply impressed by the warmth of their reception across the capital. “Everyone here has been incredibly welcoming, making this journey fantastic,” she said.

She also echoed organizers’ praise for pickleball as the perfect activity to bring young people from different countries together. The sport has exploded in popularity across American schools and community parks over the past five years, making it a common pastime for teenagers on both sides, and its low barrier to entry makes it an ideal icebreaker. “Pickleball creates a relaxed atmosphere that combines healthy competition and teamwork. It is a lighthearted way for young people from different countries to get to know one another,” Kelly explained.

Past exchange groups from Iowa that have traveled to China have returned home with glowing reports of their trips, Kelly said, and those positive accounts have sparked growing curiosity about China among more Iowa teenagers, leading to rising demand for similar exchange opportunities. She also called for continued reciprocal exchange, extending an open invitation for Chinese student groups to visit Iowa in the future to build their own connections.

For 15-year-old Iowa student Carrigan Grace Rasmussen, the entire trip has already exceeded her expectations. An avid pickleball player herself, she said the sport is ubiquitous in her home community, where she and her friends gather regularly to play between classes and on weekends. Like Zuo, she emphasized that shared participation in sport cuts through cultural and political differences to create genuine closeness. “Competitions help us build close bonds. When either side makes mistakes, we can cheer each other up and offer support,” she said, summing up the event’s core spirit: that common ground is easier to find than many think, when you start with a ball and a shared love of play.