Governance & Political Systems
Contemporary (2000–present)
Horn of Africa, Sudan
Sudan's RSF-SAF war — gold trade financing and the regional dimension nobody wants to discuss
<p>The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) versus Rapid Support Forces (RSF) war that began on 15 April 2023 has killed an estimated 150,000 Sudanese, displaced over 10 million, and produced what the UN OCHA describes as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. The international media coverage has focused on the humanitarian disaster; the financing and regional-actor dimension has been systematically underreported. Understanding the war's persistence requires looking at both.</p>
<p>Sudan is Africa's third-largest gold producer (after Ghana and Mali by some measures, second by others). The Jebel Amir gold mines in North Darfur and the Block 14 concession in River Nile state have been substantially under RSF control since at least 2017, when Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ('Hemedti') consolidated the RSF's predecessor Janjaweed forces. Sudanese gold exports — formally and through smuggling routes — flow predominantly through Dubai, where roughly 70-80% of African gold exports are refined. Some of this gold exits Sudan via Chad, Egypt, and Eritrea by overland routes that bypass official Sudanese customs.</p>
<p>The regional-actor dimension: the United Arab Emirates has been the most consequential external backer of the RSF, providing weapons through Chadian and Libyan routes, financial support through Hemedti-controlled gold trade, and diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council. The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC have all documented this with primary sources. The UAE's official denials are contradicted by the satellite imagery and UN Panel of Experts findings. Egypt has been the SAF's primary external backer, providing aircraft maintenance and operational support; Russia (Wagner / Africa Corps) has worked with both sides at different points, prioritising the gold-trade access; Saudi Arabia and the US have hosted the Jeddah peace process, which has produced humanitarian protocols but not a ceasefire.</p>
<p>What makes the war structurally persistent is that both sides can self-finance indefinitely. The SAF controls Port Sudan and the Red Sea coast; the RSF controls most of Darfur and substantial gold-producing territory. Neither faces a financing constraint in the short-to-medium term. The famine the IPC formally declared in El Fasher and other RSF-besieged areas in mid-2024 has not produced sufficient international pressure to shift the underlying calculus. Adam Hochschild's argument about Belgian-era Congo — that international moral pressure works only when it threatens specific commercial relationships — applies depressingly well here. The Dubai gold market is the commercial relationship that would need to be threatened. It has not been.</p>
<p>The honest near-term forecast is continuation. Neither side can win militarily quickly; neither side has incentive to negotiate while resources flow. The civilian cost mounts. International humanitarian access is restricted. The African Union, paralysed by member-state divisions, has produced statements rather than action. This is the conflict that is testing whether 'African solutions to African problems' has operational content.</p>
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