The UN specified on Wednesday that Sudan’s war economy was helping to perpetuate the ongoing crisis armed conflict between Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) through the trade of various Sudanese goods, including gum arabic, one of the country’s main exports.
In addition to external military support and arms deliveries, the conflict in Sudan is also sustained by income from raw materials trade. The UN noted that amid rising costs of maintaining military operations, parties to the conflict were relying on control of territory, trade routes and goods to generate revenue, leading to a “self-perpetuating” conflict. These revenues are associated with trade in gold, livestock and agricultural products generated by their extraction, export and payments along trade routes.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk stressed that Sudan’s wealth of natural resources, far from benefiting the country’s population, undermines human rights and fuels conflict.
In this context, the United Nations launched a report The focus is on Sudan’s trade in gum arabic, an ingredient used in various cosmetic and pharmaceutical products, and its global value chain, highlighting how this trade violates international human rights and fuels armed conflict.
The report found that millions of Sudanese citizens who make their living from the gum arabic trade have experienced multiple human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, looting and extortion by warring parties and associated actors. These abuses are the result of large-scale looting and conflict-related disruption of the gum arabic value chain by armed groups seeking to control the trade and profit from its revenues, which has severely affected the livelihoods of already struggling civilians Conditions.
The report also found that the armed conflict has transformed the gum arabic trade in Sudan by fragmenting export routes, imposing informal taxes and smuggling into neighboring countries via cross-border routes. All of these practices have weakened the traceability of goods origin and formal export channels.
Therefore, the United Nations emphasized that the spread of illicit trade in gum arabic and other raw materials amid the escalating conflict is the joint responsibility of the Sudanese authorities, neighboring countries, states associated with downstream procurement and processing, and companies involved in the raw material’s value chain.
On this issue, Türk called on both states and global companies operating in Sudan’s commodity trade to abide by the law UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and take necessary measures to ensure that trade and export practices do not violate human rights or increase conflict. These measures must include increased human rights due diligence and stricter controls on trade routes and intermediaries.
After three years of ongoing conflict in Sudan, the country’s population is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, characterized by widespread malnutrition, mass displacement, war crimes against civilians and the collapse of health infrastructure. The United Nations has previously warned that the escalating armed conflict is further deteriorating living conditions in the country amid continued arms shipments and declining humanitarian funding.
