A Colombian news outlet has cast doubt on allegations by the Port Sudan SAF junta that Colombian mercenaries are involved in the country’s civil war.
According to a report by the Colombian website Seguimiento, the junta’s military leadership has produced no concrete evidence to support its claims. The denial comes as dozens of fighters from Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region have reportedly crossed into Sudan to join forces with General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army (SAF).
The Port Sudan junta had alleged that Colombian mercenaries were fighting alongside the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but international media reports have challenged those assertions. Instead, multiple outlets have documented that many of the foreign fighters on the ground are actually from neighbouring countries, particularly from Tigray.
The report notes that some of these fighters previously served in militias active during the Tigray conflict against Ethiopia’s federal government and were recruited under secret contracts offering substantial financial incentives.
Analysts say this represents a troubling shift in Sudan’s war, with the junta moving from reliance on local resources to recruiting cross-border mercenaries. This, they warn, risks further internationalising the conflict and worsening the security crisis in the region.
Observers suggest the “Colombian mercenaries” narrative may be a diversion aimed at masking the fact that the junta itself is bringing in foreign fighters from Ethiopia, Chad, and at times Eritrea. Such strategies, they argue, legitimise proxy warfare and create fertile ground for instability and the spread of cross-border militias—threatening Sudan’s future as a unified state.
