Sudan: security firm’s ‘victims’ call on UAE to issue apology

Dozens of Sudanese workers who signed contracts with a UAE company have handed over a petition to the Council of Ministers demanding the government to request an official and public apology from the government in Abu Dhabi in addition to the total restitution of the victims’ rights, Anadolu Agency has reported.

The workers had travelled to the UAE and signed up with Black Shield Security Services, and were then transferred to Libya. Their petition called for an investigation into the way that the Sudanese workers were duped into going to the UAE so that officials and those involved in the affair within Sudan can be held to account.

On 2 March, Sudanese lawyers commenced legal proceedings against travel agencies that took part in the deception by luring them to sign work contracts with the company. The Sudanese Council of Ministers discussed the issue at the end of January as the victims’ families demonstrated on several occasions in the capital, Khartoum.

READ: Sudanese begin proceedings to prosecute UAE’s Black Shield

A report was published by the Guardian on 25 December last year about the “involvement” of Abu Dhabi in financing the transport of mercenaries to fight in Libya alongside the militias of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Social media activists have circulated pictures of Sudanese workers preparing to leave the city of Ras Lanuf in Libya for a flight back to Khartoum, amid intensifying public pressure to bring the young men home.

A statement from Black Shield Security Services insisted that it is a private security service. It denied allegations that it has deceived its staff regarding the nature, system or location of the work for which they have signed a contract.