"The UK has sanctioned those suspected of being linked to financing, procurement, and commercial networks fuelling the Sudan conflict.

The sanctions come as the UK and international partners are on red alert, monitoring the deteriorating situation in El Obeid, where the RSF is building up surge forces around a city already under immense humanitarian pressure." See list of sanctioned below.

Press release

From Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and 

The Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

Published Thursday 16 July 2026 - full copy:

UK sanctions illicit gold networks fuelling Sudan’s war amid crisis around El Obeid

The UK has sanctioned those suspected of being linked to financing, procurement, and commercial networks fuelling the Sudan conflict.

• UK announces Sudan sanctions package targeting illicit gold and finance networks sustaining the war
• UK calls for UN arms embargo to cover El Obeid as city on the precipice of major atrocity 
• Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper says UK will tackle those fuelling the conflict.

The UK has today announced sanctions targeting the conflict gold trade in Sudan, procurement networks and financial facilitators that are fuelling Sudan’s war.

Sudan’s booming gold industry is the engine of its war economy. While official gold exports were worth $1.5 billion in 2024 and 2025, the true value of the sector is estimated to be several times higher, with billions of dollars’ worth of gold smuggled out of Sudan each year through illicit channels, helping finance weapons procurement, military operations and the activities of armed groups.

These measures target eleven individuals and entities suspected of being linked to the financing, procurement and commercial networks supporting the RSF or the SAF and fuelling Sudan’s conflict. All are Sudanese but they trade internationally including in the gold markets in Dubai and Hong Kong. 

At the centre of the package is Sudanese national Abu Dharr, suspected of being a notorious RSF financier and procurement facilitator. He is suspected of having helped fund and sustain RSF operations from beyond Sudan’s borders through a web of real estate, conflict gold, and holding companies based in Dubai.

Vast quantities of Sudanese gold continue to be monetised before entering global markets, making it a critical gateway for revenues generated by Sudan’s illicit gold sector.

By targeting these companies and facilitators, the UK is exposing and disrupting key commercial networks that help convert Sudan’s gold wealth into revenue that sustains the conflict.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said:

“The people of Sudan continue to pay the price for a war fuelled not only by guns and fighters, but by illicit flows of gold and finance to fill the war chests on both sides. These sanctions are targeting Sudan’s war economy and they will shine a light on those who seek to profit from these illegal shadow networks. 

“As the world watches the deeply alarming build-up around El Obeid, we continue to call on the RSF to halt their assault. And we are making clear that those enabling atrocities, from the battlefield to the boardroom, will be held accountable.”

The sanctions come as the UK and international partners are on red alert, monitoring the deteriorating situation in El Obeid, where the RSF is building up surge forces around a city already under immense humanitarian pressure.  

The UK has warned that El Obeid is at risk of becoming the scene of another mass atrocity, following the horrors witnessed in El Fasher. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has called for the UN arms embargo to be extended to reach El Obeid.

Illicit gold will be a priority theme at the UK’s Illicit Finance Summit, due to take place in London in December 2026. The Summit will bring together governments, civil society and the private sector to build an international coalition to tackle flows of dirty money around the world, including the trade in illicit gold.

ENDS.

Notes to Editor.

• Foreign Secretary Statement to the House of Commons with UN arms embargo call to reach El Obeid.

• List of sanctioned.

· Abu Dharr Abdul Nabi Habiballa Ahmmed – RSF financier and procurement facilitator suspected of using a network of companies to secure funding, move money and support RSF operations.

· Prodigious Real Estate Management Supervision Services – Sudanese UAE-based company suspected of being part of Abu Dharr’s commercial network used to support RSF financing activities.

· Mazin Fadlalla – RSF-linked procurement operative suspected of being involved in acquiring funding, equipment and materiel for the RSF.

· Ahmed Hashim – RSF- linked procurement operative suspected of being involved in sourcing funding and supplies for the RSF.

· Natwest Logistics – Sudanese UAE-based company suspected of being used by Mazin Fadlalla and Ahmed Hashim to support RSF procurement and logistics activities.

· Aoun Commercial Brokers – Sudanese UAE-based company suspected of being used by Mazin Fadlalla and Ahmed Hashim to facilitate procurement and financial transactions for the RSF.

· Ahmad Abdalla – Procurement operative linked to the SAF and Defence Industries Systems (DIS), suspected of being involved in securing weapons, equipment and funding for the SAF.

·Portex Trade Limited – Sudanese Hong Kong-based company suspected of being used by Ahmad Abdalla to support SAF procurement activity and evade existing sanctions restrictions.

· Omdurman Mining – Sudanese state-owned mining company suspected of generating gold revenues that support the SAF’s war effort.

· Ariab Mining Company – Sudanese state-owned mining company suspected of involvement in illicit gold activities that generate revenue for the SAF.

· Sudamin Company Ltd – Sudanese state-owned mining company linked to Sudan’s gold sector and suspected of channelling revenue from conflict gold to both the SAF and RSF, including through past links to sanctioned company Al Junaid.

View original: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-sanctions-illicit-gold-networks-fuelling-sudans-war-amid-crisis-around-el-obeid

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Business and Human Rights in Conflict: Gum Arabic from Sudan - Companies can't continue business as usual when sourcing their products from a war zone

Article by Volker Türk 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

United Nations Human Rights
Published at LinkedIn on Wed 15 July 2026 - full copy:

Sudan’s vast natural resources should benefit its people. Instead, they are being misused to drive conflict and undermine human rights, bringing pain and suffering on an enormous scale. 

 

The war economy is now helping to sustain the three-year-long conflict. Our new report warns that this poses serious human rights risks across commodities, trade routes and value chains. It calls on companies dealing with Sudanese products to conduct strict due diligence to ensure compliance with international law.

 

The report focuses on the trade in gum arabic – a key ingredient in soft drinks, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. It finds that many of those who depend on this commodity for a living have been subjected to arbitrary detention, looting, threats, and extortion by the parties to the conflict and associated groups. 

 

I urge States and companies dealing with Sudanese products to strengthen accountability, traceability, and regulatory oversight. International human rights and humanitarian law, as well as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, provide a framework for action. 

 

Companies cannot continue business as usual when sourcing their products from a war zone.

Briefing Paper
Business and Human Rights in Conflict: Gum Arabic from Sudan

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/sudan/2026-07-15-sudan-trend-analysis-report.pdf

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Sudan: Situation for children remains among most severe globally. Violence is escalating in N. Kordofan

Sudan Humanitarian Update
May - June 2026
From OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)

HIGHLIGHTS

Violence continues to escalate in North Kordofan, taking a heavy toll on civilians and causing extensive damage to critical civilian infrastructure.
 

Explosive ordnance, including unexploded bombs, artillery shells, rockets, and landmines continues to pose a serious threat to families who returned to their homes.
 

The situation for children in Sudan remains among the most severe globally, with millions affected by ongoing violence, disrupted essential services and escalating humanitarian needs.

Click here for the PDF

https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-humanitarian-update-may-june-2026

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International Criminal Court has "concrete evidence" linking RSF leaders to war crimes in Darfur, Sudan

"The International Criminal Court (ICC) has "concrete evidence" linking leaders of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to recent war crimes in the Sudanese state of Darfur, the ICC's deputy chief prosecutor says.

Nazhat Shameem Khan told the BBC the ICC had reached a "breakthrough" in its investigation into the massacres of civilians in the cities of el-Fasher and el-Geneina." Read full story.

From BBC News

By Thomas Mukhwana

Africa correspondent

Published Thursday 09 July 2025 - full copy:

International court tells BBC of breakthrough in Sudan war crimes probe

IMAGE SOURCE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES 

Image caption, Tens of thousands of people fled el-Fasher after the city was seized by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has "concrete evidence" linking leaders of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to recent war crimes in the Sudanese state of Darfur, the ICC's deputy chief prosecutor says.

Nazhat Shameem Khan told the BBC the ICC had reached a "breakthrough" in its investigation into the massacres of civilians in the cities of el-Fasher and el-Geneina.

"It may take time for justice to develop, to be brought to the court, but we will get there," Khan said, adding that RSF leaders have also been linked to crimes against humanity.

The siege and takeover of el-Fasher marked one of the bloodiest episodes in the ongoing war between the RSF and Sudan's army.

More than 6,000 people were killed in el-Fasher as the RSF seized the city in October last year, the United Nations says, while the paramilitary group is accused of carrying out a similar massacre in el-Geneina.

The group has repeatedly denied carrying out widespread killings anywhere in Darfur.

Khan said: "We have now found concrete evidence that links what is happening on the ground through linkage evidence to specific persons in leadership mode."

However, she did not give a timeline on when charges might be brought against those responsible for the atrocities in the war, which began in April 2023.

"We cannot say how quickly or how long it's going to take," she said.

"But we can say that progress has been significant and that we have achieved a breakthrough."

The ICC, based in the Dutch city of The Hague, is a global court with the power to bring prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Khan spoke to the BBC after visiting refugee camps in eastern Chad, where those who had fled the fighting in Darfur told her of the atrocities they had suffered.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in el-Fasher and the UN said the violence there bore the "hallmarks of genocide".

The RSF has denied widespread allegations that killings in the city were ethnically motivated and follow a pattern of the Arab paramilitaries targeting non-Arab populations.

The group insisted the scale of the atrocities had been exaggerated but acknowledged that some violations had occurred in the city.

Shortly after the capture of el-Fasher, RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said the group was investigating any atrocities. The probe is ongoing, the RSF said recently.

The ICC has been investigating allegations of war crimes in Darfur for more than 20 years since the previous round of violence in the 2000s.

"What we see is patterns of offending that in fact were the same patterns of offending 20 years ago when this situation was first referred to us by the Security Council," she said.

Khan said the ICC investigation included witness accounts, testimonials and corroborative evidence such as videos, photographs and forensic evidence.

Previous investigations have led to seven arrests and six separate cases being brought before the court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Those charged include Sudan's former President Omar al-Bashir.

He remains at large, having been ousted in a coup in 2019. It is believed he is being held in a secure medical facility in Sudan.

Four others face arrest warrants but have not been detained.

Last year, the ICC sentenced one former militia leader to 20 years in prison after he was successfully convicted of 27 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed in Darfur from 2003 to 2004.

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman was a senior figure in the Janjaweed, a government-backed group which targeted Darfuri civilians who were not part of country's majority Arab population.

The Janjaweed was one of the groups which developed into the RSF, a paramilitary force once aligned with Sudan's army, but which it is now fighting.

View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9928zr2m5xo

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Inside The Secret Network Fuelling Sudan's War

From Lighthouse Reports
Co-published with EVIDENT and Sudan War Monitor
On 29 June 2026 - full copy:

INSIDE THE SECRET NETWORK FUELLING SUDAN'S WAR

Lighthouse Reports travelled to Eastern Libya to expose the UAE supported RSF network of military training camps that enabled them to continue their war in Sudan.

The shadowy role of the United Arab Emirates in fueling the war in Sudan – once a well kept secret – is now acknowledged as a key driver of Sudan’s disastrous, yearslong civil war.

Still, little is known about how the UAE co-opts regional governments to achieve its aims in Sudan.

Lighthouse Reports, Evident and Sudan War Monitor travelled to eastern Libya to reveal how the UAE network works on the ground. Through a combination of open source and on-the-ground reporting, the investigation sheds new light on one of the UAE’s most entrenched operations in their vast network of support to the RSF.

As the international community has failed to intervene in Emirati meddling, the UAE has meanwhile built a sprawling network of complex logistics, military bases, financing, and weapons trafficking routes to prop up the Rapid Support Forces and fuel their war efforts in Sudan.

METHODS

The investigations drew on a long term analysis of activity across TikTok, Facebook and Telegram. We reviewed thousands of posts and built an archive of more than 500 relevant clips showing convoy movements between Libya and Sudan, activity at key desert checkpoints and camps, and developments in the border triangle. We verified and connected this material through geolocation, analysis of uniforms, vehicles and other identifying symbols, and social-network analysis of accounts linked to the RSF, the Libyan National Army, and associated networks.

We complimented these efforts with analysis of high resolution commercial satellite imagery of specific sites. Using a custom processing workflow with publicly available Sentinel-2 data., we tracked changes in vehicle routes across remote stretches of the Sahara, helping us understand how smuggling and asset transfers developed in response to changing conditions on the ground. These findings informed reporting trips and interviews.

We worked with ⁨Conflict Insights Group, a public benefit research firm, that conducted analysis of telephones located at Camp 17. CIG used publicly available adtech data, which is information from cookies that users agree to sell to third party vendors when they visit a website or use a mobile application. The information includes movement data, language settings, and other details that users consent to selling to a third party vendor, which CIG purchased. CIG found evidence of at least two South American mercenaries at the site in the summer of 2025. One device located at Camp 17 was set to Colombian Spanish and visited the site from 11-12 June 2025. Another device was set to Argentinian Spanish, and used a military grade phone on 13 aug 2025.

This investigation received kind support from Maltego and IRBIS OSINT-platform.

STORYLINES

Our reporting, including interviews with LNA officers, RSF defectors, and Sudanese military sources, unveiled four previously unidentified RSF camps in Libya, contrary to claims by the RSF that they do not conduct troop training outside of Sudan and contrary to LNA insiders’ claims that the RSF operations in Libya were largely wound down by late 2025.

In Kufra, we embedded with the Libyan National Army in the border triangle area where we had been tracking RSF training and transit sites via social media analysis and heat maps of tracks from suspected RSF resupply convoys throughout the desert for months.

Keen to show us that they were combatting trafficking and had shut down any alleged flow of weapons into Sudan, Lieutenant Enheish Fattah of the LNA’s Subul Al Salaam brigade flatly denied that the LNA facilitated RSF activities in Libya.

“No, that’s all rumors. People are trying to create conflict between the Libyan and Sudanese armies,” Lieutenant Fattah said when questioned on 2025 clashes between the Sudanese Army and the LNA in the border region, in response to increasing frustration of the Sudanese Army and its backers in Egypt about LNA support for the RSF.

Interviews with eight RSF defectors still living in Libya, revealed the full scale of their operations there, which extend from small-scale training activity and transit points in Benghazi to more robust sites in the desert in the border triangle region. These sites include staging sites to prep weapons and modify vehicles for war, training sites where RSF soldiers say they trained alongside the LNA and UAE-contracted Colombian mercenaries, and convoys of trucks carrying fuel and alleged weapons from Libya back into Sudan.

Defectors told us that they were expected to return to Sudan to train their fellow RSF soldiers based on the training they received in Libya.

One defector who agreed to speak on camera to Evident, revealed the location of a previously unknown training camp located approximately 20 kilometers outside of Benghazi.

He described arriving in Libya and being sent to Benghazi through Kufra. Others, he said, were sent to a military camp in Jufra for training. Of his own time at the camp known to him and others in RSF as Camp 17, he told us “there are many here in Camp 17. They are in charge of cars, supplies, and ammo and oversee delivery of them.”

He said the RSF would bring “around 40 or 50, maybe up to 70 or 80” soldiers at a time to train in Camp 17. They would receive their training from LNA soldiers and Colombian contractors.

“RSF is mainly supported by the Emirates,” he told us, adding “but no one can speak up or ask.”

Libyan authorities failed to meaningfully engage with us on the reality of what is happening inside Libya or on their collaboration with the UAE to support the RSF. We traveled to Nairobi, Kenya to interview a spokesman for the RSF government, Tassis, who denied the claims revealed in our reporting.

While the scale of Sudan’s war is almost impossible to account for due to the lack of humanitarian access and the level of violence across the country, recent estimates put the death toll at nearly 400,000 people. 

Regional analysts insist that the level of support from the Emirates for the RSF has allowed violence, particularly in the Darfur region, to spiral out of control. We interviewed survivors from Khartoum and Darfur in Kufra and in Benghazi to understand the true impact of Emirati meddling on Sudanese civilians. 

They arrived in Libya after arduous journeys from Sudan – some traveling through Chad – often harassed by RSF soldiers and human smugglers throughout their journey.

“When we reached Libya, we had nothing left,” Fatima, a mother of four living in Kufra told us. “I have nothing left but my children and my honor.”

CO-PUBLICATIONS

Evident & Lighthouse Reports: 

Inside the Secret Network Fueling Sudan's War

Sudan War Monitor: 

Inside the RSF's Libya Supply Network

Credits: Julia Steers, Klaas van Dijken, Jack Sapoch, Bashar Deeb, Margot Gibbs, Tessa Pang, Wael Eskandar, AM, and many unnamed Sudanese journalists, Amel Guettatfi, Srdjan Stojiljkovic, Stacey Naggiar, Jennifer Smart, Kevin Clancy, Zach Toombs

View original: https://www.lighthousereports.com/investigation/inside-the-secret-network-fueling-sudans-war/

Hat tip: Dr Eric Reeves, Co-founder Team Zamzam Project, Responding to Famine and Aiding Victims of Sexual Violence in Darfur

linkedin.com/in/eric-reeves-01b6b16 (LinkedIn)

fundraise.operationbrokensilence.org (Personal)

fundraise.operationbrokensilence.org (Other)

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