Proceeds from looted gold and gum arabic are being used by warring parties in Sudan to fund the war, the UN human rights office has verified.
A new OHCHR report described gum arabic and gold sales as “a major revenue source” for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The authors decry how the wealth of the embattled nation has become a tool to undermine human rights and exacerbate conflict, causing pain and suffering on a colossal scale.
Gum arabic, also known as acacia gum, is harvested from the stems and branches of the acacia tree and used in the food and drinks trade, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
The produce is a vital source of income and benefits for about five million people across Sudan. Its popular demand has been linked to smuggling to Chad, Egypt, Kenya, and Libya.
The RSF militia is believed to have hijacked gum arabic stocks from a major trading centre in El-Nuhud, West Kordofan, and redirected them to Darfur and Chad in May 2025.
The loot, according to the UN, was used as a form of compensation for RSF fighters in the absence of salaries, with at least 3,700 tons stolen between January and June 2024.
Before the war broke out in April 2023, Sudan accounted for around 70 to 80 per cent of global crude gum arabic exports, with annual exports worth up to $183 million.
The OHCHR said many Sudanese people who depend on the trade have faced threats, arbitrary detention, looting and extortion from the opposing sides and their allies.
Traders who pass through RSF-controlled parts of Darfur and Kordofan in the west and central Sudan have faced confiscation, informal taxation and insecurity.
Merchants also endured checkpoints, various charges, and cross-border smuggling along the more secure northern and eastern routes towards Port Sudan and Northern State.
“Sudan’s vast wealth of natural resources should benefit its people,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani noted. “What we are seeing today is anything but that.”
The UN agency called for a disruption of the war economy, urging the international community to pay closer attention to the commodities and trade routes that help keep it alive.
