EUROPE FEEDS THE UAE AS THE UAE STARVES SUDAN
How have we got to a situation where the European taxpayer feeds the second richest family in the world, while the state they rule starves the country experiencing the world's worst hunger crisis?
As reported by investigative journalism organisation DeSmog, Al Nahyan - the family ruling the UAE with a wealth of $320 billion - is extracting millions from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.
Because EU payouts are based on land size rather than need, the UAE’s massive "mega-farms" in Romania, Spain, and Italy qualify for huge sums. This means that, while European farmers struggle to survive, EU taxpayers are effectively paying a billionaire dynasty to grow food that is shipped back to the Gulf.
While the UAE secures its post-oil future by hoarding fertile land in the North, it is using its proxy, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, to drive a man-made famine in the South.
In central Sudan’s Al-Jazira state, known as the country's breadbasket, the UAE-backed RSF systematically destroyed crops and looted farming equipment, crippling Sudan's food supply. The RSF also looted UN warehouses that held food for 1.5 million people, effectively using starvation as a tool of war.
Famine conditions have also been reported in cities besieged by the RSF.
In southern Sudan's South Kordofan state, children were forced to eat tree leaves out of desperation as the UAE-backed militia continues to bomb UN aid convoys.
Meanwhile, children were forced to eat charcoal in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan. In a horrifying display of cruelty, the UAE-backed militia's fighters recorded themselves executing civilians simply for attempting to bring food into the besieged city.
The Global North is subsidising the greed of the world’s second-richest family, even as that family fuels the worst famine in the Global South.
If the EU continues to feed the UAE's rulers, they are only fueling the machinery of violent extraction that views human life as a disposable obstacle to resource control.