Looted gold and gum arabic are funding Sudan’s war, the UN warns

In a warning on Wednesday, the UN human rights office, OHCHRhighlighting how the country’s warring parties are looting gum arabic and changing trade routes so they can use the proceeds to perpetuate the conflict.

“Sudan’s abundant natural resource wealth should provide benefits to its people. The sad thing is, what we see today is nothing like thatsaid OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani. “This wealth only undermines human rights and encourages conflict, bringing pain and suffering on a very large scale.”

Why this matters:

• All warring parties profit from the sale of gum arabic
• Commodity trading is linked to arbitrary detention and other abuses
• Used in food and beverage trade, medicine and cosmetics
• Smuggling routes extend through Chad, South Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Egypt

Across Sudan, gum arabic provides an important source of income and benefits for around five million people. This material is harvested from the trunks and branches of acacia trees in conflict-affected areas, where there are serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Target sitting

Before war erupted in April 2023 following Sudan’s failed transition to civilian rule, the country accounted for about 70 to 80 percent of global gum arabic exports. Annual exports of gum arabic are worth up to $183 million. This made it a valuable target for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia which is believed to have looted supplies from a major trading center in El-Nuhud, West Kordofan, and routed them west to Darfur and Chad, in May 2025.

Today, Sudan still accounts for a “large share” of the global supply of gum arabic, despite the conflict and serious risks to human rights reported by the OHCHR.

“These war-torn economies must be disrupted, and the international community must pay greater attention to the commodities and trade routes that can help these economies survive.insisted Ms. Shamdasani.

Danger zone

According to a new OHCHR report, many Sudanese communities dependent on or linked to the gum arabic trade have faced “threats, arbitrary detention, looting and extortion” from the warring parties and their allies.

Traders who use the corridor across the Rapid Support Forces-held Darfur and Kordofan regions in western and central Sudan face confiscation, informal taxation and insecurity. Along the safer northern and eastern routes to Port Sudan and the Northern states, traders faced numerous checkpoints, “formal and informal charges and some cross-border smuggling”, the report noted.

Before the conflict, production was concentrated in the so-called “rubber belt”, including the Kordofan and Darfur regions, as well as the states of Blue Nile, White Nile, Sennar and Gedaref, where small farmers and semi-nomadic farmers relied on harvests as an important source of off-season income.

Check friends

The report noted that “large quantities” of gum arabic had been diverted by the RSF in West Kordofan and parts of Darfur towards Souq al-Na’am, the demilitarized zone separating Sudan and South Sudan, and then further into South Sudan, Juba and onwards to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

Alternative routes have also reportedly emerged including heading to Chad and onwards to the port of Douala in Cameroon and other cross-border locations, where the gum is relabeled before being exported and processed.

Security CouncilAppointed experts have previously documented how looted gum arabic was transported along routes to Chad, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. “Widespread looting of gum arabic by the RSF was used as a form of compensation for fighters for lack of salaries” with at least 3,700 tons looted between January and June 2024.

Golden gift

While gum arabic has played an important role in sustaining the conflict in Sudan, gold sales are the “main source of income” for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary RSF, according to the authors of the OHCHR report.

In 2024, declared gold production in SAF-controlled territory is about 65 tons, of which about 28 tons are officially exported via Port Sudan, with a reported value of about $1.6 billion, or about 48.5 percent of Sudan’s total exports.

However, official reports and statements indicate that nearly 48 percent of Sudan’s gold production in 2024 will be smuggled abroad, the OHCHR report notes. There is no data on gold production in RSF-controlled areas, although the precious metal is likely still extracted and traded from mining areas in Darfur and Kordofan, including Jebel Amer in North Darfur, Songo in South Darfur, and Talodi in South Kordofan.