Sudanese officials seem aware of the large-scale smuggling of their country’s gold to its northern neighbour but remain unable to take decisive action to stop the outflow. In a statement to the local media, Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim disclosed during a visit to the Northern state in early March that officials from a ‘neighbouring country’ – a clear reference to Egypt – informed him that 48 tons of Sudanese gold had entered their country in 2024 alone.
Other countries supportive of the SAF-led Port Sudan authorities, such as Türkiye and Qatar, have also been hosting Islamist former members of the Bashir regime, who are crucial to providing the financial networks, weapons and military equipment needed for the SAF’s war effort. There are suggestions that the SAF has sought to sell gold through these networks in Türkiye and Qatar, with varying degrees of success.
While not directly linked to the gold trade, the re-establishment of diplomatic ties with Iran has been crucial to the Port Sudan authorities, especially in terms of providing Iranian Mohajer-6 drones to the SAF in 2024, which have been crucial for the SAF’s efforts to reverse the RSF’s gains in the capital and central Sudan. Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim visited Tehran in November 2024 to further strengthen cooperation. Gibril also has close links with the Muslim Brotherhood in Qatar, which has a history of engagement on mediation in Sudan, notably sponsoring the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur in 2011.
Support from Egypt and other regional players has been crucial for the SAF to continue the war. This assistance is likely heavily predicated on Cairo’s appetite for Sudanese gold as well as the SAF’s ability to finance arms purchases with gold revenue. Consequently, the SAF has been under pressure from its Islamist backers not to participate in international negotiations and to continue to seek a military victory.
However, the SAF’s dependence on gold has also constrained its ability to marshal diplomatic and security support for its war against the RSF, notably through its strained relationship with the UAE. Although there is a growing diplomatic rift between the SAF and the UAE over the latter’s support for the RSF, Port Sudan is also aware of its economic dependency on Emirati financial channels and gold exports, necessitating an intricate balancing act between political tensions and financial pragmatism.
The SAF’s Assistant Commander Lieutenant General Yasir al-Atta has repeatedly denounced the UAE for providing military and logistical support to the RSF in its war against the SAF. During his frequent garrison tours, al-Atta routinely attacked the UAE’s leadership, using inflammatory language. This animosity escalated in December 2023 when Sudan’s foreign ministry expelled 15 members of the UAE delegation based in Port Sudan, and peaked in June 2024 when Sudan presented alleged evidence to the UN Security Council that the UAE was backing the RSF, which the UAE vehemently denied. Tensions have remained high, and in March 2025, the Port Sudan authorities filed proceedings against the UAE at the International Court of Justice, accusing the UAE of complicity in genocide due to its backing of the RSF.
However, despite the escalating rhetoric, General Burhan has refrained from openly criticizing the UAE, recognizing the financial leverage the UAE holds over Sudan. The de facto government of Sudan relies heavily on the UAE to clear international trade transactions and secure vital imports like fuel and consumer goods. The Port Sudan authorities depend mainly on the Abu Dhabi branch of the state-owned El-Nilein Bank to manage international transactions, a critical asset considering Sudan’s post-coup international isolation. Similarly, the UAE-based Dubai Islamic Bank, and other Emirati banks and investors, have a significant stake in the Bank of Khartoum, the largest commercial bank in Sudan, whose digital platform, Bankak, facilitates money transfers for millions of displaced Sudanese and public institutions. Any disruption in the Bank of Khartoum’s operations due to diplomatic fallout would have severe consequences for the SAF and the public sector.
The Port Sudan authorities have attempted to overcome the constraints in selling gold to the UAE by moving production from SAF-controlled areas through Egypt, as well as finding alternative markets for its gold, notably seeking to persuade Qatar to build a refinery for Sudanese gold exports.
Furthermore, in April 2024, Gibril Ibrahim, confirmed that despite diplomatic tensions with the UAE, gold from areas controlled by the Port Sudan authorities is still partly exported to Dubai, at the insistence of some private sector exporters. These exporters and producing companies prefer Dubai as a destination because of long-established relationships and the availability of finance from the UAE’s economic hub to purchase essential goods that can then be imported to Sudan.
Reporting from the SMRC indicates that of the 2 tonnes of declared gold produced between April and August 2023 (in SAF-held areas), 1.8 tonnes were exported to Dubai. More notably, UN trade data shows that Emirati imports of gold from Sudan remained substantial following the outbreak of war. In 2023, the UAE was reported to have imported 17 tonnes of gold from Sudan, with a value in excess of $1 billion. Even more notably, the Central Bank of Sudan reported that in 2024 almost 97 per cent of official gold exports (from SAF-held areas) were to the UAE, earning $1.52 billion. Moreover, this figure accounts for 48.5 per cent of Sudan’s total exports in 2024, which reinforces the economic reliance of the SAF on Dubai and the UAE for resources that enable the continuation of the war.
Indeed, high-level Emirati investors own some of Sudan’s most productive gold companies, such as Emiral Resources Limited, owner of Kush for Exploration and Production Co. Ltd., which established Alliance for Mining Co. in 2014. According to a 2020 SMRC annual report, Alliance for Mining Co. was the leading franchise company that year, producing 2.97 tonnes of gold. Following the outbreak of the war, Alliance for Mining Co. emerged as one of the leading companies selling its gold production to the SAF-led Port Sudan authorities, further highlighting Port Sudan’s critical role in Sudan’s gold industry and its complex ties to both domestic and foreign power players.
The Port Sudan authorities have attempted to overcome the constraints in selling gold to the UAE by moving production from SAF-controlled areas through Egypt, as well as finding alternative markets for its gold, notably seeking to persuade Qatar to build a refinery for Sudanese gold exports. Port Sudan has struggled to find an alternative destination for Sudan’s gold, although in March 2025, they jointly announced with Qatari authorities the launch of a new investment entity that would be reliant on gold, including the establishment of a refinery in Doha for Sudanese gold.
Support for the RSF – all roads lead to the UAE
During the transitional government period, the RSF developed its own autonomous external relations. Prior to this, in 2013–19, the RSF also pursued joint external relations with the SAF. Notably, commanders of both forces frequently travelled to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to coordinate the deployments of their fighters in the war against the Houthis in Yemen as of 2015. Following Bashir’s fall, Burhan and RSF leader Hemedti conducted joint state visits at times as the chairman and deputy chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council.
Ultimately, Hemedti sought to reinforce the RSF’s position as a competing centre of power by conducting state visits on his own. The RSF command maintained close diplomatic relations with leaders in neighbouring countries including Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda – with political and economic interests intersecting. Hemedti also cultivated relations with Russia, visiting Moscow at the time it launched the war against Ukraine. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were both important stakeholders for the RSF, as Hemedti sought to build his external legitimacy. And shortly before the 2021 coup, the RSF’s second in command Abdelrahim Dagalo visited Israel as part of a military delegation to strengthen relations following Sudan’s signing of the Abraham Accords.
The most notable backer of the RSF has been the UAE, a claim the UAE continues to publicly deny despite mounting evidence to the contrary, including by the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan. The majority of Sudan’s gold exports end up in the UAE, which is the dominant destination for licit and illicit gold flows from across Africa. The trade has continued during the war. In 2024, the UAE was Sudan’s biggest export market, with exports worth $1.6 billion (over 91 per cent of which was gold), making up over 53 per cent of all exports from Sudan. In return the UAE is reported to have supplied sophisticated weapons (drones, anti-aircraft missiles, mortars and ammunition) to sustain the RSF’s war effort.
The UAE’s power projection in the region
The UAE’s interests in Sudan are shaped by multiple factors, including gold, Red Sea maritime security, food security and commercial interests. In this context, the UAE has expressed concerns over the Sudan revolution and the civilian political transition from 2019, as well as the revival of political Islam in Sudan since the war began. The UAE’s transactional approach to Sudan is the result of highly centralized, personality-driven and securitized decision-making structures, which should be assessed through the lens of growing Emirati assertiveness elsewhere on the continent and emergence as a middle-order power.
The UAE’s foreign policy approach across Africa has evolved over the last decade, following its support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen from 2015, in which Sudanese forces from both the RSF and the SAF participated. Security entanglements in Yemen and Libya have sharpened the UAE’s engagement across the Red Sea. The UAE has also sought to sustain its position as a leading logistics hub and maritime power, with the aim of ensuring that Jebel Ali port in Dubai remains a strategic hub connecting Asian, African and global markets, through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, a vital maritime chokepoint handling 12 per cent to 15 per cent of global trade.
Africa’s emerging importance to the UAE is part of its vision for global economic diversification and interconnectedness. This includes a transport corridor (combining economic, security and political interests), stretching from East Africa across the Sahel to West Africa – with state and non-state actors in countries such as Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Libya forming part of the Gulf state’s second tier relationships and interests. This strategy has been enhanced partly due to the UAE’s growing competition with Saudi Arabia, the Gulf’s traditional hegemon and neighbour on the Red Sea, which is undergoing its own accelerating economic diversification, under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ‘Vision 2030’ policy.
Gold is a significant contributor to the UAE’s post-carbon economic and security horizons. The UAE, and specifically Dubai, is one of the main hubs for the global gold trade, with multiple gold refineries and thousands of traders in precious metals and stones. A SwissAid report from 2024 highlights the importance of African gold to the UAE, with Emirati statistics showing that annual gold imports from Africa to the UAE more than doubled between 2012 and 2022, from 243 tonnes to 609 tonnes. In 2022, the UAE reported importing 1,059 tonnes of gold (with a value of $59.5 billion) – with gold from Africa accounting for 58 per cent of the total gold imported into the UAE, with a trade value of $34.5 billion. Significantly, this means that African gold accounted for nearly 7 per cent of the UAE’s GDP ($502.7 billion) in 2022.
The UAE’s role as a major hub for smuggled gold is well established. Between 2012 and 2022, the UAE imported 2,569 tonnes of gold from Africa that was not declared for export from African countries, amounting to $115.3 billion. The UAE’s due diligence regulation for the gold sector, the UAE Good Delivery Standard, has become more rigorous but remains non-binding since its inception in 2021. However, there have been improvements, with 32 gold refineries suspended in 2024 for failing to follow anti-money laundering laws. Yet the UAE continues to benefit from Sudan’s conflict gold – as the enforcement of restrictions on artisanal gold imports from countries where there is war or where gold is controlled by armed groups remains limited.
Competing external influences
The UAE and Egypt emerge from this analysis as the external actors with the greatest direct ‘outside-in’ influence over Sudan’s contemporary conflict dynamics, relationships that are in both cases heavily reliant on gold. However, these actors are not simply trying to maintain and maximize access to and profit from Sudan’s gold, they are also enmeshed in wider regional and global political, economic and security dynamics, seeking to boost their influence and strengthen their positions in relation to each other and other regional powers. This has been most visible in the emerging competition between the UAE and Saudi Arabia for regional primacy.
The UAE has sought to influence Sudan’s neighbours to support its interests in the country through chequebook diplomacy, through deals with Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia, including investments or military cooperation agreements. It has also sought to leverage its influence over Egypt, which is economically dependent on both the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The announcement in February 2024 of the UAE’s $35 billion investment in Egypt’s Ras El Hekma real estate development coincided with an evolution of regional mediation efforts, following on from Egypt and the UAE co-facilitating high-level SAF–RSF talks in Manama, Bahrain, in January, alongside the US and Saudi Arabia. At the time, there were signs that Egypt might moderate its backing for Burhan, given the growing sense that a complete SAF victory was unlikely.
The UAE has sought to influence Sudan’s neighbours to support its interests in the country through chequebook diplomacy, through deals with Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia.
For its part, Saudi Arabia is seen as a more neutral player in the war, having hosted two rounds of talks in Jeddah in 2023, which resulted in the Jeddah Declaration. Despite subsequent efforts to widen the mediation to include other regional actors, Saudi Arabia continues to be protective over the ceasefire process, seeking to ensure that it hosts and receives credit for any future agreement. This position is shaped by Saudi Arabia’s desire to be a regional peacemaker, as well as its rivalry with the UAE. There remains Saudi discomfort at the prospect of a future Emirati foothold on the Red Sea, via a Sudanese port. The Saudi leadership is also more inclined to engage state actors, with the suggestion of a leaning towards the SAF, as the perceived de facto state actor, which is reinforced by the UAE’s support for the RSF.
Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia all participated in US-sponsored talks in Geneva in August 2024, subsequently forming part of the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan group. However, this platform ultimately focused on trust-building and ensuring traction on the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and was not able to navigate ceasefire talks or change the calculations of the regional backers of the warring parties. Subsequently, a narrower diplomatic ‘quartet’ emerged including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and US – which is seen as encompassing the key players who can exert leverage on the warring parties.
Limited high-level US diplomatic engagement on Sudan during the Biden administration was due to the civil war’s relatively low political salience in Washington, given the long list of simultaneous global crises. This led to an unwillingness to overtly pressure the UAE or Egypt on Sudan due to their key roles in resolving other conflicts in the Middle East, such as the Gaza crisis, which were deemed a higher priority. To an extent, the lack of strategic coordination between the US and other major Western allies on Sudan left the former US envoy, Tom Perriello, isolated.
Multiple US sanctions on Sudan’s main warring parties, particularly on the RSF, including Hemedti in early 2025, have in part sought to expose and disrupt the network of companies and illicit financial flows that have bolstered the RSF’s fighting capacity, particularly in the gold sector. This includes several companies based in the UAE, and these measures can be seen as the US putting subtle pressure on the country to lessen its support for the RSF. The Biden administration resisted openly admonishing the UAE for its role in Sudan despite significant pressure from congress for it to do so. In fact, the US strengthened its strategic and defence partnership with the UAE during President Mohamed bin Zayed’s visit to Washington in September 2024. On Sudan, the communique only noted a ‘shared commitment to de-escalate the conflict’, illustrating how far down Sudan is on the priority list.
It remains to be seen how the Trump administration will engage on Sudan, but the US is expected to be selective and transactional in its engagement in Africa. Sudan policy will likely be shaped by US strategic interests in the Middle East, especially the economic and security concerns of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and how these relate to President Trump’s desire to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and broaden the Abraham Accords.
