اخبار السودان – وطن نيوز
اخر اخبار السودان اليوم – اخبار السودان العاجلة
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-03-01 15:03:00
Analysis of the political economy of conflict 2026 | Based on data from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and International Crisis Group reports, at dawn on April 15, 2023, the sound of cannons rang out in Khartoum and Omdurman, awakening the Sudanese to a war that many did not expect to break out with such ferocity and speed. Within weeks, the capital — among Africa’s largest — was reduced to rubble and a battlefield. But whoever goes back years before that morning discovers that the war was not a structural surprise; It was the logical outcome of a long process of dismantling the state from within. This article does not narrate the war, but rather dissects the economy that fuels it — and answers a fundamental question: Why does it not end? First: State suicide – from coup to collapse. The collapse of the Sudanese state is not an accidental event that occurred in April 2023, but rather the end of a scene that extended over more than three decades. Since the Islamist coup in June 1989, the Sudanese state has been restructured according to one logic: expanding the security services and reducing every independent civil or military institution. The regular army was stripped of broad powers in favor of parallel security forces, and the economy was transformed from a development project into a patronage network that nourished loyalties. The most dangerous step in this path was the employment of militias as an alternative to the army in conflict areas – especially Darfur since 2003. The Janjaweed, who later transformed into the Rapid Support Forces, did not create amnesty; They were a tool of the official state that used and strengthened it, and then it found itself facing a monster that it fed until it grew bigger. By 2013, when an official law was issued regulating the Rapid Support Forces and attaching them directly to the Presidency of the Republic, the state had created for itself a parallel army with a parallel budget and parallel authority. “What happened in April 2023 was not a sudden explosion — it was the moment of intersection between two armies, both of which had funding and equipment, and both saw the other as an obstacle rather than a partner.” By 2019, when the popular revolution broke out and Al-Bashir fell, the state was suffering from “Dual sovereignty”: an official state that maintains its seat in the United Nations, and an actual state based on centers of security and economic power completely independent of institutional oversight. The transitional period (2019-2021) failed to address this duality, but rather deepened it. When Burhan and Hemedti turned against the civilian government in October 2021, the last door to real structural reform was closed, and the armed clash became a matter of time, not a matter of possibility. Second: Gold – 100 tons evaporate annually. Billions that do not reach the treasury. To understand why the war continues, we must understand who is financing it. The key here is not oil – most of which was lost with the secession of the south in 2011 – but gold. Sudan’s official production is estimated at 41.8 tons in 2022, according to the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company and US Geological Survey data – after reaching its historical peak of 107 tons in 2017. However, this number does not reflect the whole picture: unlicensed private mining, which employs between a million and a million and a half workers across 12 states, It raises the actual estimates to more than 100 tons annually. In 2024, official production reached 64 tons — a rise that reflects the expansion of parallel extraction networks despite the war, not a real economic recovery. International import data reveal a gap that can only be explained by smuggling: between 2012 and 2023, Sudan officially exported 335 tons, while importing countries – especially the UAE – recorded imports of 534 tons. The difference? 199 tons disappeared in one decade. After the outbreak of war, things got worse: 48% of 2024 production went out through smuggling, according to company data. And based on current gold prices (~$5,000 per ounce), half of 2024 production alone moves outside any institutional control — not building a hospital, not returning displaced persons, but rather going where war money goes: to finance its continuation. After losing oil revenues, which constituted about 70% of government revenues, Khartoum turned to gold as a rentier alternative. But instead of subjecting the mining sector to transparent oversight, entities linked to the Rapid Support Forces obtained extensive mining concessions in Darfur and Khartoum, and gold flowed out through unofficial channels to the UAE, Egypt, Chad, and Russia, completely bypassing central bank regulations. A report by Global Financial Integrity estimates that between 50 and 80 percent of Sudanese gold is exported informally annually, while Chatham House investigations indicate that Jebel Amer and other entities linked to the Rapid Support Forces controlled the mining and export chains in North Darfur, generating annual revenues equivalent, by some estimates, to the entire budget of a small army. “When an armed actor has gold revenues independent of the state, the state becomes in his view a burden without a point of reference. For this very reason, war sometimes becomes cheaper than peace.” This explains what seems paradoxical: a parallel military force fighting the state that financed and armed it. Self-financing through gold gave the Rapid Support Forces complete economic independence, making subordination under state authority an option, not an obligation. Third: The War Economy — When Chaos Becomes Profitable After the outbreak of war in April 2023, the economic dynamic completely shifted. Resources are no longer just a means of financing conflict — conflict itself has become a means of seizing new resources. The numbers reveal the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe: More than 11 million internally displaced people by the end of 2024 (UNHCR) More than 2 million refugees outside the borders About 18% of the GDP The Sudanese economy contracted in 2023 (International Monetary Fund) The inflation rate exceeded 200% in 2024 (World Bank estimates) More than 25 million people are at risk of acute hunger (World Food Program 2024) But behind these catastrophic numbers the “war economy” operates. With his own logic. The two warring parties – the army and the Rapid Support Forces – gain from the conflict what peace does not guarantee, through four intertwined paths: Control of mining areas: Multiple reports indicate that the Rapid Support Forces took control of most of the gold mines in Darfur and Kordofan during the early stages of the war, and that extraction and export operations continued during the period of fighting through the same smuggling networks. Imposition of taxes and royalties: The areas subject to each party are now suffering from an informal system of taxes imposed on merchants, farmers, and the movement of goods. This reproduces armed income even in the absence of direct natural resources. Organized looting: United Nations and Human Rights Watch reports documented systematic looting of banks, hospitals, commercial warehouses, and factories, estimated at billions of dollars. What is looted is not thrown away — it is sold in parallel markets inside Sudan and across the border. Control of economic corridors: Control of the main roads between cities means the ability to impose unofficial transit fees. The road between Port Sudan and Khartoum – the artery of the national economy – now passes through multiple checkpoints that turn the movement of goods into a permanent source of income for those who control it. “When the returns from war exceed what peace can provide for those who control these routes, stopping the fighting becomes a difficult economic decision before it is a political decision.” Fourth: The lesson of Libya and the Congo – when conflict becomes permanent. Sudan is not a unique case. It reproduces a pattern we have seen before in different contexts, revealing a unifying law: natural wealth in the absence of institutions does not extinguish war—it perpetuates it. In Libya: After the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, oil fields and ports turned into sites of permanent conflict. Today, the Libyan state produces about one million barrels of oil per day – but its revenues go to two competing parties in the East and West. Oil wealth did not end the war; Rather, it has made it more continuous because whoever controls an oil field does not want it to stop. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Congo is one of the richest countries in the world in mineral reserves (coltan, gold, cobalt, cassiterite), but at the same time it suffers from an armed conflict that has been ongoing for three decades in its east. Armed groups numbering more than a hundred organizations are fighting not primarily for political power, but also for control of mineral mines. The United Nations annually counts more than $1 billion in mineral resources illegally extracted and exported from Congolese conflict zones — and the iTSCi Mineral Tracking Initiative has failed to break this cycle due to the lack of real international political will to close parallel markets. The common denominator between Libya, Congo, and Sudan is one: resources did not extinguish the war — rather, they added an economic dimension to it that makes it more difficult to extinguish. The higher the value of what is fought over, the higher the price of peace. Fifth: Why do all mediations fail? Since April 2023, multiple rounds of negotiations have been launched: the Jeddah track under Saudi-American auspices, African Union initiatives, Egyptian mediation, and IGAD efforts. They all stumbled or froze. The structural answer is revealed by economics, not diplomacy: More than 8 rounds of negotiation rounds in the Jeddah track (2023-2024) 3 announcements of the principles of the agreements signed and pending implementation More than 12 truces The truces announced and violated within a week Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia, Chad, the United States The guarantor states of the different tracks Three structural reasons explain this repeated failure: First – the survival of economic incentives: as long as war yields more than peace for whom He fights, as any agreement remains hostage to the will of the parties, not their obligations. The Jeddah process stopped at a certain point when the negotiators reached the question of “Who controls the gold sector?” – This is an issue that cannot be resolved by distributing government positions. Second – Continuation of financing networks: No parallel financing channel was closed during all these negotiations. The Rapid Support Forces still export gold, and the army still owns economic companies independent of the general budget. Third – Conflicting regional intervention: Neighboring countries have conflicting interests in the outcomes of the conflict. The UAE — the leading importer of Sudanese gold — has no incentive to close these routes, while Egypt sees an existential threat in any paramilitary force controlling border areas. Sixth: Peace that cannot be achieved by signature alone. The solution is not impossible, but it requires a completely different approach than what we tried. A settlement that redistributes chairs without restructuring the political economy of the conflict will find itself facing a new collapse after a few years. There are three indispensable paths: The first path – controlling strategic resources: Any serious peace agreement must include international mechanisms to control gold exports and prevent its flow through informal channels. The Kimberley Process model, which established international mechanisms to track “blood” diamonds, can be inspired by the Sudanese gold sector. Without this, financing for the war remains open. The second path – real, not formal, security integration: The actual integration of the Rapid Support Forces into the military system requires cutting off its independent sources of funding before – or simultaneously with – the unification of the command. Merging leadership while maintaining independent funding is just a change of name without changing the structure. The third path – rebuilding the social contract: Sudan needs to re-establish the relationship between the state and the citizen on the basis of “taxation for representation.” The experiences of countries emerging from devastating conflicts – Kwanda, which rebuilt its revenue system and local services before engaging in summit arrangements – have proven that this path is not a romantic slogan, but rather the only equation capable of producing sustainable stability. Conclusion: The Collapse Equation What Sudan is suffering today is not just a war between two armies – but rather a structural transformation in the nature of the state itself. We are facing a transition from the “rentier state” model – which monopolizes wealth and distributes it from above – to the “armed rentier” model, where resources are liberated from the state to finance armed actors directly and make them self-sufficient. The independence of armed financing + the absence of a tax contract + dual sovereignty = a war economy that reproduces itself. This equation cannot be solved by diplomacy alone. It can only be solved by structural transformations in how military actors are financed, how the state extracts its revenues, and how the citizen relates to the state through a real contractual relationship. Sudan is large, its people are solid, and its history is ancient. But states do not escape “institutional suicide” with emotions — but rather with difficult decisions that redesign the political economy of power at its roots. This is the real bet in Sudan today. Sources and references International Crisis Group reports (2023-2025) | Sudan Economic Monitor — World Bank | International Monetary Fund, Sudan Reports 2023-2024 | Global Financial Integrity | Chatham House — Gold and Conflict Economies | World Food Programme, Sudan Food Security Report 2024 | UNHCR, Displacement Data 2024 o.sidahmed09@gmail.com
