Since the outbreak of Sudan’s war in mid-April 2023, the battlefields have witnessed the presence of foreign mercenaries from Colombia - particularly in the fighting across Kordofanand Port Sudan.
According to an investigation published by In Depth Reports, based on testimonies from civilians and soldiers stationed in the Port Sudan military camp, the Colombians have been fighting alongside the Sudanese army.
They arrived in Port Sudan lured by false promises -advertisements plastered across the streets of Bogotá and Medellín read: “Security jobs in the Middle East - official contracts - salaries in U.S. dollars.”
The offers attracted wide interest. Investigators noted unusual flight patterns of groups departing Colombia via various transit hubs, only to land in military airports in eastern Sudan - most notably Port Sudan.
The recruits had been enticed with promises of securing oil facilities.
Yet, upon arrival, they discovered that their destination was not Libya’s oil fields, as they had been told, but Sudan - a land of training camps, brutal frontlines, and a war whose causes they did not even understand.
Controversy in Colombia
The report highlights contradictions arising from the integration of these foreign fighters into Sudanese military units, creating what it calls “a state of confusion within some units due to the presence of corpses never repatriated to their families and whose identities do not match Sudanese army records.”
The deaths of these mercenaries, who fought and fell alongside the Sudanese army without their remains being returned, have sparked public outrage in Colombia.
Meanwhile, lawyers and human rights defenders are following the case with growing concern, amid questions about the fate of those killed and buried in Sudan without any official notification to their families.
Colombian lawyer Gustavo Juan Ramírez described the situation as “tragic,” saying: “Entire families are waiting to bury their sons with dignity, yet the truth is that many were left behind in Sudan without a trace.
This is not only a violation of international law but a deep human wound that magnifies the suffering of mothers and wives who do not even have a grave to visit.”
International Crime
Although the United Nations Convention Against the Recruitment of Mercenaries is explicit, the loophole lies in the operations of private security companies, which provide a legal façade for such activities, making it difficult to prove the intent of direct participation in hostilities, according to Professor Antonio Cassese, an international law expert at the University of Geneva.
He stated in the investigation that “bringing Colombian fighters to serve in the Sudanese army against local forces clearly falls within the scope of international crime.”
The recruitment of foreign combatants constitutes a clear violation of international law.
The International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, adopted in 1989 and ratified by dozens of states, provides a precise definition of what constitutes a mercenary.
The Convention criminalizes the recruitment, use, financing, or training of mercenaries, as well as their direct participation in hostilities within a country to which they do not belong -particularly when such participation serves financial or political interests in internal or international conflicts.
