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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.

On Tuesday, the fifth round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel kicked off in the U.S. capital, marking a new chapter in efforts to end ongoing hostilities even as a parallel diplomatic track between the United States and Iran threatens to complicate and overshadow the bilateral process. This three-day round of talks follows four earlier negotiating cycles that failed to deliver a lasting ceasefire or close the deep ideological and territorial divides separating the two neighboring states.

As talks get underway, Lebanese negotiators are arriving in Washington with a clear set of core priorities: pushing for a binding timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied southern Lebanon, securing the safe return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Lebanese civilians, negotiating the release of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, and laying the groundwork for large-scale post-conflict reconstruction. For its part, Israel has repeatedly linked any territorial withdrawal to the full disarmament of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, and insists that Israeli forces maintain control over a wide security buffer zone inside southern Lebanon until Israeli officials are satisfied that the Lebanese army can fully prevent Hezbollah from reestablishing a military presence in the area.

Unlike the four prior rounds held earlier this year, this latest negotiating session unfolds against a drastically shifted regional diplomatic landscape. A recent memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran has folded the Lebanese-Israeli conflict into a broader regional ceasefire framework, and follow-up discussions held near Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne produced a blueprint for a new multilateral mechanism designed to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. This development means the bilateral Washington talks are no longer the sole diplomatic forum addressing the Lebanon conflict, creating new questions about who ultimately holds decision-making power over Lebanon’s negotiating path – a particularly sensitive issue for the Lebanese presidency, which has framed the direct bilateral talks as a critical step to restore state control over issues of war, peace and national sovereignty.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly stressed that no foreign power has the authority to negotiate on Lebanon’s behalf. “We welcome any assistance to end the war, but we are a sovereign country and no one negotiates on our behalf,” Aoun stated ahead of the fifth round of talks. Lebanese officials have described the decision to open direct negotiations with Israel as a historic step that allows the Lebanese state to reclaim full responsibility for the country’s foreign and security policy, in line with Article 52 of the Lebanese constitution, which grants the president authority to negotiate international agreements in coordination with the prime minister, with final approval required from the cabinet and, depending on the terms of any deal, parliament. Still, well-placed sources confirm that the launch of direct talks came in large part from intense U.S. diplomatic pressure on Beirut, and that talks have proceeded even as Israel has continued its airstrikes and ground operations across southern Lebanon.

After four rounds of talks since April failed to secure a durable end to fighting, the longest pause in Israeli airstrikes came not from an agreement between Lebanon and Israel, but after the U.S.-Iran memorandum was signed – a reality that has strengthened Hezbollah’s argument that Iran’s diplomatic track with Washington is far more effective at securing an Israeli ceasefire than the Lebanese government’s bilateral negotiations.

The fourth round of Washington talks, held June 2 and 3, concluded with a joint statement from the U.S., Lebanon and Israel that outlined a framework requiring a full halt to Hezbollah attacks and the withdrawal of Hezbollah operatives from the area south of the Litani River as preconditions for a ceasefire. The statement also announced plans to establish “pilot zones” where the Lebanese Armed Forces would exercise full exclusive control, with all non-state armed groups excluded from the areas. The framework also emphasized that the future of Lebanese-Israeli relations must be determined by the two national governments, and rejected any attempts by external actors to hold Lebanon’s future hostage.

This joint statement drew sharp criticism from Hezbollah, which argued it imposed one-sided obligations on the group while offering no binding Israeli commitment to withdraw from occupied Lebanese territory. Hezbollah officials have labeled the direct bilateral talks a grave mistake that grants Israel long-sought political gains without requiring it to end its occupation or halt military operations. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who led Lebanon’s indirect negotiating channels with Israel in prior talks, has also argued that Beirut should rely on the existing ceasefire monitoring mechanism established after the 2024 hostilities agreement, and has publicly rejected limited pilot zones, calling instead for a full comprehensive ceasefire, full Israeli withdrawal, and parallel implementation of commitments by both sides.

A senior source close to the Lebanese delegation revealed that the pilot zone proposal nearly caused the fourth round of talks to collapse entirely. Initially, Israel rejected the proposal, prompting Lebanese negotiators to threaten to walk away from the session. U.S. officials stepped in to broker a compromise, persuading Israel to accept the principle of pilot zones, but the two sides remain deeply divided over where the zones will be located and what specific obligations will apply to each party.

Lebanese negotiators proposed the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil as the first pilot zone, a city that falls within what Israel calls the “Yellow Line” – a self-declared military boundary Israel has marked inside Lebanese territory to demarcate areas under its operational control. By nominating Bint Jbeil, Beirut aimed to push back against the risk that Israel’s current controlled area would gradually become a permanent buffer zone. Under Lebanon’s proposal, Israel would withdraw from Bint Jbeil, the Lebanese army would deploy to the city, Hezbollah would dismantle its military infrastructure, and displaced residents would return to their homes. But Israel rejected Bint Jbeil as the initial test site. “The Israelis appeared as though they had been dragged into the negotiating room by the Americans. You could see it on their faces. They did not want to be there,” the source close to the negotiations noted.

Instead of accepting Lebanon’s proposal, Israel has demanded that it retain full control over the entire Yellow Line, while retaining the right to monitor Lebanese army operations targeting Hezbollah both south and north of the Litani River. Israel has stated that it will only consider further territorial withdrawals after it assesses the Lebanese army’s performance and confirms that the army has fully dismantled Hezbollah’s military positions. For Lebanon, this framework risks cementing Israel’s current positions as a semi-permanent security zone, and makes withdrawal conditional on an open-ended, unregulated Israeli assessment of the Lebanese army’s actions.

In this fifth round of talks, the Lebanese delegation plans to revisit the pilot zone proposal and push for a broader geographic scope, moving beyond the small individual villages and narrow sectors discussed in prior rounds. A presidential source close to the talks says a new broader framework covering entire districts has been proposed, which would include multiple towns and villages on both sides of the Litani River, rather than testing the arrangement in isolated localities. The source added that this approach has even been discussed by Berri, despite his public rejection of limited pilot zones. Under this broader framework, Israeli withdrawal, Lebanese army deployment, civilian return, and the removal of Hezbollah military infrastructure would be implemented across a much larger contiguous area. Even with this new proposal, core fundamental differences between the two sides remain unchanged: Lebanon demands that withdrawal begin the process, while Israel demands concrete proof of Hezbollah’s disarmament before it gives up control of occupied territory.

The biggest uncertainty hanging over the Washington talks, however, stems from the new parallel diplomatic mechanism emerging from U.S.-Iran talks in Switzerland. U.S. Vice President JD Vance confirmed that the Swiss talks produced a framework for a body designed to reduce tensions in Lebanon and prevent renewed escalation. Details of the proposed body, which has been called both a deconfliction cell and a tension-reduction committee, have not been released to the public. A source close to the Lebanese presidential palace told Middle East Eye that Lebanese officials have not yet received a full explanation of the body’s membership, authority, or relationship to the existing Washington negotiations.

Current indications suggest the mechanism will include Lebanon, Iran, and the U.S., with Pakistan and Qatar potentially joining as mediators. The working model appears to have the U.S. communicating directly with Israel, Iran communicating directly with Hezbollah, and the Lebanese state participating as a formal direct party. Under this arrangement, neither Israel nor Hezbollah would have formal representation, but both would have indirect access through their main international backers.

Israel has already raised concerns that the mechanism grants formal recognition to Iran’s role in Lebanese affairs, while potentially restricting Israel’s freedom of military action. For Lebanese officials, the key concern is that Iran could use the process to speak for Hezbollah and negotiate matters involving Lebanese territory independent of the internationally recognized Beirut government. Still, the Lebanese presidency has indicated it is willing to engage with the new mechanism as long as the U.S. leads the process and the Lebanese state retains formal representation.

According to the presidential source, U.S. recognition of the Pakistan-backed diplomatic initiative does not mean the Washington and Swiss tracks have to be mutually exclusive. The two processes could eventually converge: the direct bilateral talks would resolve core Lebanese-Israeli territorial and political disputes, while the Swiss mechanism would work to enforce calm between Israel and Hezbollah through guarantees from the U.S. and Iran. But no framework has yet been established to clarify where one process’s authority ends and the other’s begins. “The Washington and Swiss tracks do not have to remain separate,” the source said. “The question is how they will intersect. At this stage, that is still not clear.”