Booming wartime gold trade flows through the UAE

SUDAN’S gold industry has become the lifeblood of its war, with nearly all of the trade channelled through the United Arab Emirates (UAE), enriching the army and paramilitaries, according to officials and NGO sources.

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The two-year conflict has decimated Sudan’s economy, yet last month the army-backed government announced record gold production last year.

Demand for the country’s vast gold reserves “was a key factor in prolonging the war,” Sudanese economist Al-Abedine Adam told Al Jazeera.

“To solve the war in Sudan, we have to follow the gold, and we arrive at the UAE,” said the Emirati researcher in a statement to AFP, a UAE official rejected “any baseless and unfounded allegation regarding the smuggling or grading of gold.”

But according to Sudanese officials, industry sources and western research, most of Sudan’s gold outflows to the UAE, via official trade routes, smuggling and direct Emirati owner-ship of the governments-currently most lucrative mines.

Last month, the state-owned Sudan Mineral Resources Company said gold production totalled 64.2 tons in 2023, up from 41.8 tons in 2022. Legal exports brought in billions into the state’s depleted coffers, central bank figures show. But “nearly half of the states production is smuggled across borders,” SMRC director Mohammed Taher said from Port Sudan.

Nearly 2,000km away, on Sudan’s borders with South Sudan and the Central African Republic, lie the mines controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Much of the gold produced by the RSF is smuggled to Chad, South Sudan and Egypt, before reaching the UAE, according to mining industry sources and experts.