Figure 2 shows that Sudan’s official gold production was steadily above 80 tonnes before the war. However, gold output plunged at the start of the conflict, dropping to around 2 tonnes between April and August 2023, after five months of war. This was in part due to shortages of inputs, and exacerbated by growing hostility towards artisanal miners from western Sudan working in River Nile and Northern states, who were accused of being aligned with the RSF by local officials and propagandists due to their shared origins and ethnicity.
The urgent push for gold companies to resume production after the start of the war led to a violent clampdown by security forces on residents in the Delgo settlement in the Northern state. Mining in the area is being undertaken by Delgo Mining, a joint venture between the Sudanese government and Tahe Mining, a Turkish company. Locals have complained about alleged serious environmental contamination risks that Delgo Mining’s processing facility near the Nile River posed to their homes and farms. But repeated judicial rulings ordering the company to stop operations have been ignored due to close business ties with members of the former Bashir regime that are still influential. In the latest incident, the governor of Northern state underscored the need to continue the work of the company under any condition to financially support the war.
It is estimated that unofficial and smuggled gold exports to Egypt account for about 60 per cent of the production from Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states.
As financing the war effort became a top priority, the Port Sudan authorities geared their diplomatic outreach to Russia and China, encouraging the return of companies from these countries that had left following the war and offering new opportunities to invest in the gold sector. The authorities also reduced corporation tax for gold companies from 28 per cent to 18 per cent and on those operating in traditional mining to 20 per cent, additionally waiving the collection of fees for transferring gold produced in traditional mining areas to city markets for sale or export. This incentive was to encourage small producers to use official trading and export channels and thus to improve the tax revenues of the Port Sudan authorities.
According to the SMRC, gold production rebounded to a reported 23.2 tonnes (in SAF-held areas) by the end of 2023, but this was still far below the last pre-war official national annual production figure of 87 tonnes for 2022. Official sources have indicated a steady increase in the volume of gold production from both the artisanal and industrialized mining sectors. Gold production in SAF-controlled areas jumped again to 64.36 tonnes in 2024. The Port Sudan authorities claim to have exported 27.96 tonnes of gold in 2024, generating nearly $1.6 billion.
Much of the production from SAF-controlled areas is likely to have been exported to Egypt. There are no accurate data on how much gold from Sudan is reaching Egypt. Figures from the Central Bank of Sudan indicate that the country exported only $16 million worth of gold to its northern neighbour in 2024 – just 1 per cent of total gold exports. However, in reality it is estimated that unofficial and smuggled gold exports to Egypt account for about 60 per cent of the production from Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states, areas that have shared borders with Egypt. Research suggests that the amount smuggled into Egypt is upward of 100 kg per day, equating to more than 60 tonnes since the war began (2023 and 2024).
Several factors account for this flow. Since the beginning of the war, the SAF has sought to transfer gold to Egypt to prevent it from being sent directly to the UAE, which it accuses of supporting the RSF. Furthermore, smugglers are attracted by differential pricing in Egyptian and Sudanese markets, as well as a lower tax burden in Egypt. In May 2023, the Egyptian government issued a decision to exempt gold imports from any customs duties or tax, including unprocessed (raw) gold, regardless of the quantities or methods of obtaining it. In October 2024, one gram of 21-carat gold sold for $85 (equivalent to 4,090 Egyptian pounds), while in Sudan, the price for the same amount of gold was between $55 and $60 (around 144,000 Sudanese pounds). Sudanese traders also avoid paying the Port Sudan authorities 28 per cent in taxes (subsequently reduced to 20 per cent), instead paying around 10 per cent in fees for gold to be smuggled to Cairo’s markets. Though smuggling is fraught with corruption and Sudanese traders risk imprisonment or having their gold confiscated by police, profits from gold smuggled across the Egyptian border in 2023 and 2024 have been reported to range between 60 to 80 per cent.
But while the traders and smugglers have profited, Sudanese producers and wider society have not. The money received by Sudanese traders is used to purchase commodities in Egypt including foodstuffs and cooking oil that are then exported to Sudan, as well as inputs for mining such as fuel, mercury and cyanide. Currency from gold is also used to provide for displaced families in Egypt, including housing, services and other goods. Egypt’s economy receives multiple benefits from Sudan’s lucrative conflict commodity.
The smuggling of commodities into Sudan is also connected to human smuggling, which expanded after June 2023 when the Egyptian government sought to contain refugee numbers by requiring all Sudanese travellers to obtain a visa, a laborious process taking months. Consequently, a smuggling network evolved transporting people and gold from Sudan to Egypt. Due to the declining value of the Sudanese pound, refugees are increasingly being asked to pay for their journeys in gold, with some paying 2–15 grams of gold or $300–500 per person. On their return to Sudan, these smuggling trucks are loaded with production inputs and fuel, with the average quantities of cyanide, carbon, thiourea and other production inputs reaching about 160 tonnes per month.
RSF-controlled areas
In contrast to SAF-controlled areas, gold production in RSF zones has remained mostly artisanal. There are large ASGM areas in North and South Darfur, and parts of South, West, and North Kordofan states in RSF-controlled areas. The RSF is involved in three types of intervention in the gold sector: as a protection force for its own gold mining and trading activities through the Al-Junaid Company, in Songo in South Darfur, Jebel Amer in North Darfur, and Talodi in South Kordofan; in the form of imposed protection that ensures artisanal miners trade through RSF channels; and through some RSF units directly engaging in artisanal gold production where conditions permit. A recent report by the UN panel of experts on Sudan suggests that around 10 tonnes of gold with a value of $860 million was extracted from RSF-controlled areas in 2024, although this figure is heavily disputed, particularly given the sharp decline in Jebel Amer’s production.
North Darfur state, Jebel Amer in particular, was one of the epicentres of Sudan’s gold boom from 2012. As one of the largest gold mines in Africa during that time, with mining wells spread over an area of around 26 square kilometres and an estimated annual production of 15 tonnes, it attracted up to 100,000 migrant workers from different countries, including Chad, Libya and Niger, and was considered a melting pot for diverse Sudanese ethnicities.
However, social cohesion was shattered by the Bashir government when it established control of the mine through security agencies, notably using the Border Guard Forces (BGF), led by militia leader Musa Hilal. From 2013, another emerging Janjaweed militia group, which was to become the RSF, ousted Hilal’s BGF and took control of Jebel Amer, excluding the national police and other government bodies and monopolizing the treatment of gold tailings.
Under RSF control, production in Jebel Amer declined significantly. In 2017 and 2018, the area’s annual production dropped to between 14 kg and 17 kg, which was not sufficient to cover operating costs. Nonetheless, General Hemedti used his position as deputy chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council during the 2019–2021 transition to broker a deal with the civilian-led government to relinquish the RSF concession rights to Jebel Amer in return for $250 million in government payments and exemptions from royalties and taxes for other RSF operations, enabling the RSF business dominated by his family, Al-Junaid Company, to accelerate its dominance in the gold sector. When the war started, the RSF moved quickly to recapture Jebel Amer, though mining activity has subsequently largely ceased.
Gold mining activities also expanded in other areas of North Darfur during the pre-war gold boom, including in places such as Hashaba, Malha and Abdel Shakour, which were far from the oversight of central government in Khartoum or El Fasher. Hashaba is currently the largest gold mining site in North Darfur, located on land customarily belonging to the Zaghawa group and near the homeland of the commander of the RSF. The expansion of mines in Hashaba is one of the main reasons mining stopped in the Jebel Amer area after 2020, in addition to the decline in production. Before the war, these mines were controlled by the RSF using companies that were not officially registered and did not pay taxes to the government, which boosted financial returns. These companies remain connected to the RSF primarily through local leaders.
The Songo mines have become the most important production area for the RSF since the decline of Jebel Amer.
The Songo mines in the Al-Radom area of South Darfur state, close to the border with South Sudan, have become the most important production area for the RSF since the decline of Jebel Amer. As far as is known, the RSF’s Al-Junaid company also maintains its only tailings processing factory in South Darfur in Songo. Although production figures are difficult to obtain, an uncorroborated report from 2020 claimed that the Al-Junaid facility in Songo ‘produced 150 kg per day’ – this is likely an exaggeration and is not supported by other estimates – and that an airstrip had been constructed inside the compound for transporting ‘gold’. Additionally, there are indications that gold from Songo has been smuggled out of other airports in Darfur, including Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The RSF is widely believed to have received military supplies via Nyala airport, which the SAF claims were sent from the UAE. The SAF repeatedly bombed Nyala airport during 2024, leaving it unusable. But since January 2025, the RSF has rehabilitated the airport, including the runway.
Finally, gold mining in the al-Muthaleth tri-border region of Libya, Sudan and Egypt has gone through intermittent development since its discovery around late 2012. Mining is largely artisanal, and the remote location means that production costs often surpass incomes. However, Libya has become a key hub for gold trafficking, from goldfields such as Kouri Bougoudi, Tibesti and Ezri on the Chad–Libya border, as well as from al-Muthaleth, with smugglers including senior commanders of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), the dominant non-state armed actor in eastern Libya, flying gold to Istanbul and Dubai. Gold smuggling operations to Türkiye are also run through Misrata and Maitiga airports in Libya. The most important local group on the Libyan side of al-Muthaleth, Subul al-Salam, was officially integrated into the LAAF in 2016, and reports have long claimed LAAF support for the RSF, largely due to both groups receiving UAE backing, shared connections with the Wagner Group/Africa Corps, and the importance of fuel smuggling from Libya to Sudan. Due to their mutual allies and economic interests, the LAAF has allowed eastern Libya to be a staging-post for RSF support, from allied Sudanese militias and international mercenaries.
Much of the gold from North Darfur is smuggled from RSF areas to Chad for onwards transportation to the UAE. There have been ongoing battles between the RSF and the SAF-allied Joint Darfur Forces to control border access with Chad, which is critical for supply lines and for ensuring that gold in northern Sudan can be exported. Reports suggest that the RSF has also received weapons and logistics resupply via an airstrip in Amdjarass, across the border in northeastern Chad, where in 2023 the UAE established a field hospital to officially treat Sudanese refugees, with the possibility that gold is also flown out in return.
The RSF’s gold smuggling from South Darfur via South Sudan reportedly increased after the war started. RSF forces have been reported to be present in South Sudan’s Raja county in Northern Bahr El-Ghazal state, which has shared borders with South Darfur’s Songo, the mineral-rich Hufrat El-Nahas (a copper mine), and Kafka Kinji localities straddling the borders between the two countries and the neighbouring Central African Republic. These are areas where the South Sudanese government has limited reach, and there are suggestions that gold is smuggled from Raja county by road or plane to Juba and onto Entebbe in Uganda, where it is exported to the UAE. There are also reports that the RSF smuggled gold to the Central African Republic, working in partnership with the Russian Africa Corps.
