Gold And Geopolitics Continue To Fuel Sudan's Civil War

Gold and Geopolitics Continue to Fuel Sudan’s Civil War as It Imperils El Obeid SUDAN Sudan Nadjat Mohammed, a 43-year-old Sudanese civilian from Bara, in central Sudan, fled in September to El Obeid, the state capital, after the civil war reached her town. The fighting pitted the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the national army, against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group battling the army for the country’s control. Now the RSF, accused by the United Nations and rights groups of crimes against humanity, is threatening El Obeid, too, leaving Mohammed facing the prospect of being uprooted again. “The war is hunting us down,” Mohammed told Le Monde. “We are being displaced like cattle.” The fighting has now spread deeper into central Sudan, leaving El Obeid under siege. The war, in its fourth year, has already displaced more than 14 million people and killed at least 59,000, though some estimates put the toll far higher. The war began in April 2023 as a power struggle between Sudan’s army and the RSF, but has evolved into a conflict sustained by foreign arms, illicit gold and regional rivalries. The United Arab Emirates, drawn by Sudan’s mineral wealth, has been accused of routing arms, fuel and mercenaries to the RSF through Chad, Libya and Ethiopia. The US and Britain have sanctioned RSF figures, but not the UAE, a key Gulf energy and finance partner of the West. Egypt, alarmed by instability on its border and the RSF’s rise, backs the army with military aid. Because of the politics involved and riches to be had, both in Sudan and outside of it, there is little chance of the war stopping anytime soon, analysts say. “Although its roots are domestic, it is non-Sudanese actors that have kept the war alive,” wrote British think tank Chatham House. “Externally procured weapons and cross-border logistical pipelines have sustained the battlefield capacity of both the SAF and RSF. … The UAE’s role in sustaining the war remains the most consequential, and the most documented.” “The multi-billion-dollar trade of gold sustains and shapes Sudan’s conflict,” it added. Human rights groups and UN officials have accused the RSF of mass killings, ethnic cleansing and other atrocities, warning that its advance on El Obeid could lead to another catastrophe, as occurred in El-Fasher, which the RSF captured after a brutal siege. The UAE’s role is especially explosive, even as it vociferously denies involvement. Its ties to the RSF predate the war, and its involvement is not just ideological, analysts say. RSF fighters served Emirati interests in Yemen and Libya, while analysts say Abu Dhabi now sees the force as a means to grow its power in Sudan and the Red Sea as well as keep it supplied in gold. The RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, built his wealth and power through Darfur’s gold trade with the UAE. Sudan produced about 80 tons of gold worth more than $6 billion in 2024, with more than half smuggled to countries including the UAE. “Dubai is the world’s largest gold market, and Sudan has immense reserves,” Marc Lavergne, emeritus research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, told Radio France Internationale. “Miners are controlled by the RSF, who collect the gold and bypass the central bank and official channels. The gold is then flown directly to Dubai to be refined. This ensures the prosperity of the RSF and, at the same time, that of Dubai.” Sudan sued the UAE at the International Court of Justice in March 2025, accusing it of complicity in genocide by the RSF in Darfur. The court threw out the case in May, citing a UAE opt-out that critics say weakens accountability for such crimes. The UAE continued to deny its role in the war during the case. Meanwhile, UN investigators and rights groups have accused the SAF of unlawful killings, indiscriminate airstrikes and other abuses, too, though the RSF has faced the most extensive allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Darfur. The imbalance has raised questions about why the UAE has faced so little direct pressure even as its regional ambitions have fueled conflicts across the region, said a commentary in the Guardian. “But it has been supported in that by the US and the UK, not only political allies but financial beneficiaries,” it said. “Both countries have gone to farcical lengths to express concern over the war in Sudan while avoiding any mention of the UAE.” In the absence of pressure, El Obeid remains at grave risk of falling. In the meantime, it’s sheltering thousands of civilians who face daily drone strikes and hunger. “In El Obeid, families are starving while dodging indiscriminate attacks just to stay alive,” said Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland. “The world has been warned about this crisis and let it happen anyway.”