Why gold is prolonging civil war in Sudan

Why gold is prolonging civil war in Sudan The World Today iallan.drupal 9 June 2025 Interview: Ahmed Soliman tells Sara Seth how the United Arab Emirates and other regional powers are benefitting from Sudan’s illicit, cross-border gold trade and how that might be stopped. Your recent research paper is called ‘Gold and the war in Sudan’. How did the conflict begin? The war in Sudan broke out in April 2023 during the turbulent transitional period following the overthrow of the Omar al-Bashir regime in 2019. During his rule, al-Bashir empowered different security forces so that none was singularly powerful enough to overthrow him. Among them, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) eventually conspired to do just that. They continued working together to depose the transitional civilian government in 2021, but turned on each other soon after, sparking the current civil war. This paper is part of our Cross-border Conflict, Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) project , which highlights how conflicts across Africa and the MENA region are unconstrained by national borders and traditional alignments. H ow are the different actors benefiting from Sudan’s illicit gold trade? Gold is the primary source of income for both warring parties, made possible by a network of producers, traders, smugglers and external governments. The SAF is backed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other regional states, and the RSF by the UAE. The SAF has sought to divert gold through Egypt, both to shore up its relations with Cairo and to ensure it doesn’t go directly to the UAE, but 98 per cent of Sudan’s gold still ends up in Dubai. 98% of Sudan’s gold ends up in Dubai. The SAF-controlled authorities reported exporting 27.96 tonnes of gold in 2024, worth $1.6 billion – though this will be far lower than the total once smuggled gold and production in RSF-controlled areas are included. More than a million Sudanese are caught in this web of gold production. And it comes at a great cost to civilians, ranging from the dangerous use of cyanide in gold extraction processes, to the theft of gold jewellery from women and girls. Why is it so hard to get regional and wider actors to try to stop the war? Regional powers are profiting and gaining power from the conflict at the expense of its people. For example, the UAE wants to cement its position as a middle power and ensure its dominant position in the Red Sea which sees between 15 and 20 per cent of all global trade pass through its waters.