Sudan: Economic Leverage - Gold, Sanctions and the Arms Embargo

Summary

Sanctions on RSF commanders and Dagalo family firms sit alongside UAE-linked gold and property networks funding Hemeti, while the UN Security Council stays split over widening Darfur's arms embargo to all of Sudan.

What it argues

1. UN split over arms embargo

   The US calls Darfur's 2003 arms embargo '20 years outdated' and wants it widened to all of Sudan, says Ambassador Bartos. Russia and China block the expansion; Russia's Evstigneeva says Moscow 'will not allow even a hint of broadening' restrictions. The Council instead passed short technical rollovers in September and October 2026, extending the Darfur-only regime to 11 December. The Security Council keeps renewing a narrow, decades-old embargo rather than agreeing a nationwide one.

2. Sovereignty argument against embargo

   Sudan's UN ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed argues a total arms embargo breaches the UN Charter's guarantee of self-defence. He says Sudan's armed forces have the right to produce and acquire weapons to protect sovereignty. Khartoum frames the US proposal as a threat to its right to arm itself against the RSF.

3. UAE's network-centric statecraft

   A Middle East Eye opinion piece argues the UAE built a web of banks, front firms, militias and mercenaries that funds and arms Hemeti. It links this network to Libya's Khalifa Haftar and Russia's Wagner Group, which it says gained Sudanese gold concessions. The piece says a western official described UAE policy toward the resulting chaos as having 'buyer's remorse'. The article contends any effort to end the war must engage the UAE, calling it the hub through which aid to Hemeti flows.

4. Gold route to Dubai

   Middle East Eye reports gold mined in RSF-held Songo and Jebel Amer areas of Darfur is exported via sanctioned firm Al-Junaid, plus Glow Gold and AZ Gold, to Dubai's souk. The gold reportedly moves out through Chad or via South Sudan and Kenya, with a recorded 'massive surge' in gold entering the UAE from Kenya. Hemeti said in 2019 he deposited $1bn with Sudan's central bank from a wider business empire spanning gold, livestock and banking. Dubai's gold market is reported as the financial outlet turning RSF-controlled resources into cash.

5. Hemeti's Dubai property trail

   Investigative group The Sentry found Hemedti bought three Dubai apartments and an office building in 2020, near the UAE's al-Minhad air base. The apartments were sold in 2022 to Prodigious Real Estate, owned by Abo Zer Habib, later sanctioned by the US Treasury as head of the RSF-linked Capital Tap group. Former owners of Prodigious also previously owned companies within the Capital Tap network. Ownership of Hemeti-linked Dubai property was transferred into company structures tied to figures the US has since sanctioned.

6. US targets Dagalo family

   In September 2023 the US Treasury sanctioned RSF deputy leader Abdul Rahim Dagalo, brother of Hemeti, for abuses including massacres and sexual violence, Middle East Eye reports. Earlier sanctions in June 2023 had hit a Khartoum gold-trading firm he headed and a UAE-based firm tied to another Dagalo brother. The RSF called the US action 'purely political' and said Washington ignored abuses by the Sudanese army. US sanctions on the Dagalo family's gold-trading firms mark its first targeting of an individual actor in the war.

7. UK sanctions and accountability push

   In December 2025 the UK sanctioned Abdul Rahim Dagalo and three other RSF commanders over mass killings and sexual violence in El Fasher, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper says. The UK cites satellite images showing 'blood-stained sand' and mass graves, and says it funded the Sudan Witness Project to document violations. It paired the sanctions with a further £21m in aid, taking 2025 UK humanitarian commitments to £146m. The UK ties new sanctions on RSF commanders directly to documented evidence from El Fasher.

8. Darfur's humanitarian collapse

   WHO's Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar reports severe shortages of healthcare, food and water among over 700,000 displaced people in Tawila, Darfur. Malnutrition, limited mental health services and dwindling HIV and tuberculosis medicine stocks are worsening, WHO says. Darfur hosts 65% of Sudan's 8.6 million displaced people, per the International Organization for Migration; WHO's 2026 appeal is only 23% funded. Humanitarian need in Darfur is reported as outpacing both funding and access.