Eisa Dafallah
After two years of fighting, Sudan’s conflict has moved beyond a simple Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) vs Rapid Support Forces (RSF) binary. The country is now a patchwork of overlapping military, administrative, and economic zones, where local dynamics intersect with regional interests and financial imperatives.
The SAF controls the north – Northern and River Nile states – plus Khartoum, Port Sudan, the Red Sea coast, and parts of North and South Kordofan. In these areas, it operates government ministries, the main seaport, and airports.
The RSF and allied militias control about 45% of Sudan, down from nearly 70% in the early months of the war. RSF-controlled areas include most of Darfur, except for North Darfur’s capital El Fasher , which has been under siege since May 2024 but is still holding out.
Some rural pockets fall under tribal authority, where local leaders provide protection in exchange for loyalty or resources, independent of either the SAF or the RSF.
Analysts agree that foreign economic interests now drive the war.
External backers took over directing the conflict’s trajectory within the first three months of fighting, says Sudanese journalist Haider Abdelkarim.
This undermined the United Statesbacked Jeddah talks launched on 6 May 2023. The process leaned on “the quartet” – the US, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – to act as “big brothers” persuading both sides toward peace.
But the UAE was no indifferent “big brother”.
Political analyst Eman Kamal al-Din says Emiratis have been active participants in the war, pursuing and protecting their own economic interests, particularly gold mining and agricultural lands in Al-Fashaga, the border area with Ethiopia in eastern Sudan. She argues that peace negotiations should target the UAE directly, since the RSF has acted largely as its proxy force and is being replaced by mercenaries from Niger and Colombia in current battles.
Official data shows that in 2024, 100% of Sudan’s declared gold exports went to Egypt.
The moment may be ripe: the UAE-linked side has suffered heavy losses without achieving its goals, says Kamal al-Din. Before the war, most Sudanese gold was exported to the UAE. During the war, SAF-controlled mines remained productive but the army redirected gold away from UAE markets.
War disrupted mining in RSF-controlled areas to a greater extent because it was mostly artisanal.
Egypt has benefitted from this shift. In May 2023, a month into the war in Sudan, Egypt abolished all customs duties and taxes on gold imports, making it the prime destination for both official and smuggled Sudanese gold.
Official data shows that in 2024, 100% of Sudan’s declared gold exports went to Egypt. Chatham House research estimates more than 100kg of gold a day has been smuggled there during the war.
Three main gold-producing states in Sudan – Northern, River Nile, and Red Sea – border Egypt and remain under SAF control. The latter has not acted to curb the smuggling, given its interest in redirecting exports from the UAE.
Abdelkarim says the path to peace is to pressure these foreign players – primarily the UAE and Egypt – to bring their Sudanese allies to the table.
Editor’s note:
How gold funds the war
Gold hasn’t always dominated Sudan’s politics. Fifteen years ago, 90% of foreign exchange came from oil, but three quarters of reserves lay in South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011. The loss plunged Sudan – still under US terror listing and trade sanctions – into crisis, pushing many people into artisanal gold mining, notes researcher Sara de Simone of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. A major find at Jebel Amer sparked a violent scramble. Omar al-Bashir’s regime deployed the Janjaweed (later RSF) to seize control, and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came to dominate gold exports, becoming a billionaire warlord. Today, those gold flows – and the powers they fund – can block or enable peace.
The old "Divide and Conquer" trick😉😳
"The love of money is the root of all evil."