Turkish defense firm accused of violating sanctions with Sudan weapons supplies

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One of Turkey’s largest defense companies has been linked to Sudan’s nearly two-year-old war after a report showed a series of arms shipments to the Horn of Africa nation in what could be a clear violation of EU and US-led sanctions on Darfur.

In a report published by the Washington Post, Baykar, a leading defense exporter and supplier of drones, was accused of sending a cache of weapons and ammunition to the Sudanese army between August and November last year.

According to the Washington Post, the first weapons, part of a $120 million (€110.7m) contract between Baykar and the Sudanese military’s procurement agency, known as Defense Industries System (DIS), landed by plane in August at Port Sudan, a Red Sea city on Sudan’s eastern coastline, while messages the Post said it authenticated showed that the last flight arrived on 15 September.

The Post report said the contract, signed by Mirghani Idris Suleiman, director-general of DIS, was dated 16 November 2023, five months after the US imposed sanctions.

Six TB2 drones, three ground control stations, and 600 warheads were part of the contract, which stated that 48 employees were to deliver, including an offer to provide “in-country technical support”.

Sudanese officials allegedly informed Baykar representatives during a meeting on 9 September that “Turkey had become the country that has supported them the most,” according to an internal Baykar memo that the US outlet said detailed the discussions.

The development casts Turkish defense companies among the foreign powers vying for spoils in the 22-month-long deadly war that has seen other international actors accused of playing different roles and fueling the conflict.

Last month, Russia struck an agreement to create a naval station in Port Sudan, another important foothold along the Red Sea, according to a statement signed by the foreign ministers of Moscow and Darfur.

Despite extending an arms embargo on Darfur in October with a unanimous vote, the UN Security Council has not attempted to take action against any of the foreign nations allegedly violating the embargo.

The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023 after a power struggle ensued between the army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, his former deputy who led the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The battles, which have mostly been in Khartoum, the capital, have also sparked deadly ethnic clashes around the country.

The United Nations regards the Sudan civil war as the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe, with as many as 14 million people displaced and starvation spreading to several areas of the nation.

Estimates of the dead from the war have varied between 20,000 and 150,000.