The sanctions are aimed at 11 individuals and businesses suspected of being linked to the networks financing and supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the regular army.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer gestures as he talks with local residents as he visits a housing development in north-west London on June 19, 2026, with a formal challenge to his leadership likely to be triggered in the near future. Photo by AFP
Britain on Thursday announced sanctions targeting what it said are “illicit gold and finance networks” propping up rival factions in Sudan’s devastating civil war.
The foreign ministry said the war-torn country’s gold trade, worth billions of dollars, was helping finance “weapons procurement, military operations and the activities of armed groups”.
The sanctions are aimed at 11 individuals and businesses suspected of being linked to the networks financing and supporting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the regular army.
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023, has killed 200,000 people by some estimates and displaced upwards of 11 million.
The sanction targets are all Sudanese, but trade internationally, including in the gold markets in Dubai and Hong Kong”, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.
Among them is Sudanese national Abu Dharr, accused of financing the RSF through “a web of real estate, conflict gold and holding companies based in Dubai”.
There are also three Sudanese United Arab Emirates-based companies and one Sudanese Hong Kong-based firm.
Two Sudanese state-owned mining companies were also sanctioned, suspected of generating gold revenues for the SAF.
A third state-owned firm, the Ariab Mining Company, was targeted for “channelling revenue from conflict gold to both the SAF and RSF”.
“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,” Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.
Africa’s third-largest country is one of the continent’s top gold producers, and the state Sudanese Mineral Resources Company reported a “five-year high” in production of 70 tonnes in 2025.
The United Nations on Wednesday said the rival factions were profiting from control over the country’s resources and that a “war economy” was sustaining the conflict.
The UK has previously sanctioned senior commanders of the RSF, who have also been targeted by the European Union.
The RSF has been accused of being a “proxy” for the UAE, which denies arming the paramilitary despite evidence presented in numerous international reports.
On Tuesday, the European Council had said it was also boosting sanctions.
In measures designed to “curb sources of financing for the conflict,” the Council said it would ban “the purchase, import or transfer of gold originating in Sudan.”
