Sudan’s “civil war” is a proxy war for gold, now waged from above with foreign-armed drones. Journalist and researcher Mosaab Baba says Sudan’s “gold curse” has both the army and the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) increasingly striking civilian targets in a neocolonial war entering its fourth year, which has already killed thousands of civilians and left millions facing famine.

With most of Sudan’s gold now funneled to Abu Dhabi, Baba tells Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra the country has become a “backyard” for the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to extract precious minerals, farmland and access to the Red Sea. A year after the fall of El Fasher, he also explains why the world’s largest humanitarian crisis keeps slipping out of the headlines. Baba also unpacks how the legacy of the December Revolution still offers hope for a sovereign, people-led Sudan, and lays out the stakes driving the Sudanese campaign against Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibeh’s potential bid to become the next UN secretary-general.

“The only glimmer of hope is that Sudanese people themselves are starting to realize how insane this war is [and] how much they need to remove these neocolonial leaders from the country.”

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Rough transcript follows:
[Speaker 1:] The UAE is the main culprit in pushing for the RSF to take over Sudan, driven by the gold trade and regional domination. They’re closely allied with the Ethiopian government, and unfortunately, Abiy Ahmed is aligned with them, though not fully carrying out their wishes. They have a strong influence on Chad and are the biggest investors in Egypt. This is why we explain this as a neo-colonial war. These powers might support both sides but have no issues with each other.

[Speaker 2:] Moving on to Sudan, another drone strike occurred this week, blamed on the Sudanese army, killing dozens in a crowded market in Nala. The RSF’s de facto capital in Darfur was affected, and RSF drones knocked out power across central and eastern Sudan, including Khartoum. Sudanese journalist and researcher Mossab Baba joins us to discuss this proxy war, now in its fourth year, and the foreign-supplied weapons that have killed thousands of civilians.

[Speaker 3:] Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[Speaker 2:] We appreciate your time and analysis. Let’s start with the latest in Nala. Local tolls range from 21 to over a hundred killed. The army claims it’s softening RSF positions ahead of a ground assault. This follows hundreds killed in drone strikes last week. Is this recent strike the opening of a push into Darfur?

[Speaker 3:] There have been changes in how both sides conduct this war, with drone strikes becoming more prominent. It shifted from relying on mortars and ground forces to drone strikes over the last year and a half. The pattern is unusual; whenever there’s stagnation between the forces, drones start firing. The SAF targets markets, as seen in Nala and a disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan.

After these attacks, the RSF retaliates by hitting civilian infrastructure in SAF areas, leaving millions without power. The strikes in Nala were fatal, and similar incidents have occurred before, like in West Darfur. This shift to drone warfare is partly due to the increasing international drone market, with both sides having partners willing to supply weapons. The SAF, as the official army, faces fewer issues bringing in weapons, but the RSF relies on a network traced by a UN report, mainly through Libya and Chad.

[Speaker 2:] The Sudanese citizen is being pummeled by this war, and neither side takes responsibility. The SAF doesn’t acknowledge strikes hitting civilians, and the RSF remains silent on their attacks. This leads to speculation about rogue elements within these camps. The SAF camp is fragmented, with different factions and militias, while the RSF has rogue elements crossing borders.

[Speaker 3:] The use of drones is a dangerous escalation in this war, now over three years old, causing one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes. International players are involved on both sides. This isn’t merely a Sudanese conflict. Powers like the UAE, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia are involved. How did Sudan become a battleground for these powers?

[Speaker 3:] The SAF and RSF were part of the same government under an imperial order. Decisions about Sudan go through Cairo, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh. This control carries over from the Bashir regime, which handed Sudan to Gulf countries. Both SAF and RSF were recruited for the war in Yemen in 2015 and remain there. The war’s goal was to kill the people’s movement calling for sovereignty and wealth redistribution. The West views these demands as socialism, though in Sudan, it’s seen as government responsibility.

Forcing Sudan to sign the Abraham Accords is another factor. Netanyahu often includes Sudan in his maps of the new Middle East. This is a late-stage neo-colonial order, with military forces lacking loyalty to the Sudanese people, allowing countries like Turkey, the UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to exploit Sudan for resources like gold and farmland.

[Speaker 2:] Speaking of resources, what’s up for grabs in Sudan? Gold, farmland, Red Sea access—what are foreign powers targeting?

[Speaker 3:] Gold is the most fatal, with the RSF utilizing it economically. Most gold ends up in the UAE, which has destabilized regions for gold mines. This gold rush causes instability, similar to the oil curse. Livestock is a close second, while agriculture struggles due to sustainability issues and food crises. Gold is a quick fix for militias and warlords running the economy and war.

[Speaker 2:] It’s been one year since the ethnic cleansing in Al-Fashir, and several massacres have occurred since. Why hasn’t Sudan registered more on people’s radars? What international efforts are being made to end the conflict, and who’s stopping them?

[Speaker 3:] Internally, there are efforts for national dialogue and a negotiated end to the war. Political parties and traditional leadership engage in people-to-people dialogue. Activists, especially in the diaspora, campaign against the UAE, which lobbies the UN and influences US policy. The UAE’s deep pockets are the main reason this conflict lacks attention. They’re pushing for the RSF to take over Sudan for gold trade and regional domination.

[Speaker 2:] Eight years ago, the Sudanese revolution began, a hopeful moment for organizing across sectors. Now, the military establishment has co-opted and crushed it. Your thoughts on this?

[Speaker 3:] The December revolution was a historic moment, uniting Sudan against the Bashir government. It was coerced by leadership and countries pressuring the military. Protests in Khartoum last December remembered the revolution. Many volunteers and activists emerged from it, maintaining social fabric and aid efforts. The revolution’s core discourse remains valid, and though affected by war, it will manifest differently as people realize the war’s insanity.

[Speaker 2:] Before we wrap up, regarding the UAE, one name floated for the next UN Secretary-General is Lana Nusseibeh, an Emirati diplomat. After the UN accused the RSF of genocide, she dismissed the allegations. If she becomes Secretary-General, it could undermine confidence in international bodies. Any thoughts?

[Speaker 3:] People see through it. Human rights organizations are making noise about this. Sudanese have a campaign against her appointment. If she’s allowed to become Secretary-General, it will erode trust in international bodies. The UN’s role in documenting atrocities is crucial, and her appointment would damage confidence in any Western body, even those with good intentions.

[Speaker 2:] Thank you, Mossab, for your time and analysis. We look forward to speaking with you again soon.

[Speaker 3:] Thank you, Ronnie and Zoe. Appreciate it.

While Saudi Arabia sits at the negotiating table as a mediator, it also features on conflict maps as a military ally, financier, and patron of regional power blocs.

Between these two roles lies a striking paradox in Saudi policy across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. By day, Riyadh calls on warring parties to cease fire; by night, it chooses its allies and backs them politically and militarily, leveraging its financial and security clout to reshape the balance of power in ways that serve its own interests.

From Port Sudan to Mogadishu, by way of Yemen and Eritrea, the question is no longer limited to whether Saudi Arabia can mediate between adversaries. It now extends to the kingdom’s position within the conflicts themselves, and then to its control over the balance of power around the Red Sea and its securing of ports and strategic corridors. Thus the image of the neutral mediator recedes in the face of the reality of a state seeking to build an axis of influence spanning both shores of the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia sponsored the Jeddah talks between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in 2023, presenting itself as a party working to end the war and protect civilians. But its subsequent political stance showed a growing bias toward the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

In January 2026, Reuters revealed negotiations over a $1.5 billion Pakistani arms deal for the Sudanese army, covering aircraft, drones and air defense systems, with a Saudi role in mediating it.

In April, the agency reported that Pakistan had suspended the deal after a Saudi objection and Riyadh’s withdrawal of its funding, according to security and diplomatic sources. On the same day, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman received al-Burhan in Jeddah. Here the glaring paradox emerges: how can a mediator maintain an image of neutrality while being tied to a track of military support for one party to the conflict?

If Sudan reveals the overlap between mediation and partisanship, Yemen offers the clearest picture of Saudi military intervention. Since March 2015, Riyadh has led a military coalition, carried out air operations, and supported government forces and local armed groups, in addition to providing economic aid to the internationally recognized government.

Its presence has not been limited to confronting the Houthis. Saudi Arabia has become an influential party in the conflicts within the anti-Houthi camp, particularly as its dispute with the Southern Transitional Council has escalated. In early January 2026, Saudi aircraft struck Transitional Council positions in Hadramawt, while Riyadh-backed forces advanced to retake control of southern areas.

This came at a time when Saudi Arabia was calling on Yemeni parties to engage in dialogue, which reveals the duality of the tools in use: military pressure to alter the balance of control, followed by a political track to arrange the outcomes.

Riyadh’s relationship with the Yemeni Islah Party reveals a further paradox. The Carnegie Center documented Saudi Arabia’s reliance on forces linked to the party in confronting the Houthis, and its provision of military and financial support to them, despite Riyadh’s declared position toward the Muslim Brotherhood, to whose political current Islah belongs.

So in Yemen the picture is clear: Saudi Arabia does not appear to be an observer of the course of the war, but one of the forces that helped shape it, determine its allies, and influence its maps of control.

On the African shore of the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia has built close security ties with Eritrea that date back to the years of the war in Yemen, when Eritrean territory and ports were used within the coalition’s military arrangements. Political and security coordination between Riyadh and Asmara continued through 2025 and 2026, coinciding with rising tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia over access to the Red Sea. Regional analyses report that Saudi Arabia and Egypt lean toward supporting the Eritrean position against Ethiopia’s maritime ambitions, while Addis Ababa views the rapprochement between Riyadh, Cairo and Asmara with concern.

The irony is that Saudi Arabia had sponsored the 2018 peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, before its own regional security relationships became part of the balancing calculations between the two sides. This reveals Riyadh’s shift from sponsoring reconciliation to building strategic partnerships with one of the two parties to the tension.

In Somalia, the Saudi presence took a more explicit course during 2026. After Riyadh announced its support for Somalia’s territorial integrity and its rejection of Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, Saudi Arabia and Mogadishu signed a military cooperation memorandum in February, alongside continued Saudi development and humanitarian assistance.

The agreement comes in a region witnessing escalating competition over ports and military influence, especially near Bab al-Mandab, where the interests of Gulf states, regional powers and international powers intersect. Regional studies read the Saudi-Somali rapprochement as part of Riyadh’s efforts to strengthen its security presence on the African shore of the Red Sea.

However, the military agreement in itself does not mean Saudi participation in Somalia’s internal war. Its political significance lies in adding Mogadishu to the network of Saudi security partnerships and strengthening Riyadh’s ability to influence the balance of power in the Horn of Africa.

Any reading of Saudi policy is incomplete without pausing at the historical controversy over the financing of extremist groups through Saudi donors and institutions. Diplomatic cables from the U.S. published by WikiLeaks in 2010 revealed Washington’s concerns about financial flows from Saudi donors to extremist groups. The UN Security Council also placed branches of the Al-Haramain Foundation on sanctions lists linked to al-Qaeda, while Saudi Arabia and the United States took part in measures targeting specific institutions and financiers.

In Syria, we should read the lawsuits brought by the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks with the same eyes. Judicial developments have allowed accusations concerning individuals linked to Saudi Arabia to continue to be heard. The importance of this file is that it keeps past Saudi policies and the financing networks tied to individuals and institutions under continuing scrutiny, even as Riyadh seeks to present itself as a partner in counterterrorism and regional stability.

It is true that Saudi Arabia’s tools differ from one arena to another, but a political thread runs through them all: one meant to secure allies capable of protecting Riyadh’s interests in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.

In Sudan, there is political backing for the army and a role attributed to Saudi Arabia in arranging its armament. In Yemen, the intervention takes a direct military form. In Eritrea, the relationship rests on security partnership and regional alignment. As for Somalia, it represents an expansion of the Saudi military cooperation network.

None of these facts mean that Saudi Arabia is fighting five direct wars, but they undermine its portrayal as a neutral party in all of these conflicts. Mediation can coexist with interests, but it loses its claim to neutrality when the mediator becomes part of the balance of power it is trying to manage.

Here the mask of the neutral mediator falls, not because Riyadh has stopped hosting negotiations, but because in a number of arenas it has become an influential party in determining who negotiates, who holds power, and who keeps the territory. From Port Sudan to Mogadishu, Saudi Arabia appears less concerned with standing outside the conflicts and more engaged in shaping their outcomes. A mediator who takes part in making the balance of war cannot ask others to treat him as a mere referee between the disputants.

Main Image: By BroadArrow at the English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14683526

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El grupo de Facebook, con más de 400.000 seguidores, está repleto de publicaciones muy similares. Una de ellas, compartida el 14 de octubre, incluye la foto de Omar Mustafa, un joven de 29 años apodado El Mecánico de la ciudad de Kosti, en el Estado de Nilo Blanco, en el sur de Sudán. Otra, del mismo día, muestra a Sabahi Mabrouk, un adolescente de tan solo 13 años del pueblo de Karkoj, en el Estado sudanés de Sennar, al sureste del país.

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Commanders suspected of sexual violence during the largest and fastest slaughter of civilians in more than 30 years have been subjected to travel ban and asset freeze

Senior Sudanese commanders implicated in a “campaign of rape” have been targeted by the UK on the first anniversary of a mass atrocity that saw tens of thousands of civilians killed over several days.

A year after the fall of El Fasher, the British government said it had sanctioned military leaders from both sides in the country’s ongoing conflict whom it suspected of sexual violence during the siege of the city.

Egypt’s armed support for the Sudanese military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan took on a new and decidedly ugly dimension earlier this month with the killing of at least 114 people working an artisanal goldmine in northeastern Sudan.

The attack took place on October 10th. Survivors describe an aircraft circling before attacking the workings at Jabal al-Uqaydat. One injured miner, Ali Mohamed Hamza, said workers were preparing tea at about eight in the morning when it appeared overhead, making three circuits before striking on its fourth pass. Other accounts describe five strikes. The number of weapons and attack runs remains unverified, as does the final death toll. 

The New York Times placed the mine in Sudan’s Red Sea State, about 25 miles from the Egyptian frontier. Its reporting identified apparent Egyptian munitions in footage from the site. Subsequent accounts of that investigation described an unexploded Egyptian NASR 400 bomb, identified by Trevor Ball, a former American army explosive-ordnance specialist. This is significant physical evidence, although the identification requires further corroboration and manufacture alone cannot establish the operator.

On October 12th Egypt’s armed forces announced a third phase of a military and police campaign against illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert. Warning leaflets had been dropped, it said, and operations were intended to protect national resources and enforce sovereignty. Cairo did not admit bombing the Sudanese mine or acknowledge casualties or crossing the frontier. Instead, its statement carefully described operations within Egyptian borders.

But taken together, the munition evidence, eyewitness accounts and Egypt’s own announcement mean Cairo can’t brush this off. Nor can they brush this off as an operation against the Rapid Support Forces. What it does suggest is that Egypt will use armed force indiscriminately against civilians wherever their Sudanese allies either won’t or can’t do it. 

This is all part of the wider story of Egypt’s involvement in Sudan. Reuters reported in February that satellite imagery showed Turkish-made Bayraktar Akinci combat drones at East Oweinat, an Egyptian airfield near Sudan. Egyptian officials acknowledged equipping two southern airports for border protection and military strikes. A separate Times investigation reported that drones operating from Egypt had attacked the RSF inside Sudan. 

All this goes well beyond diplomatic sympathy. Cairo provides political backing and, as its security officials have acknowledged privately to Reuters, logistical and technical assistance to General al-Burhan’s forces. Egypt simultaneously occupies a seat in the Quad mediation group alongside the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It therefore possesses leverage both over the battlefield and over negotiations intended to end the war.  

The contradiction is sharp. The Quad’s September 2025 statement called for an independent, civilian-led government and a transition not controlled by either belligerent. But under Burhan’s leadership that’s not happening any time soon, which means that Egypt, for all its talk about supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan, will go its own way as it sees fit—even if that includes desperate miners trying to scratch a living from the soil of their own economically devastated country.  

Burhan’s response to the miners’ deaths was pusillanimous, tepid at best. On October 12th, he ordered a fact-finding inquiry involving prosecutors, judicial officials and security representatives. His administration said Sudanese and Egyptian authorities were communicating. But there was no condemnation of Cairo or any public demand that Egypt explain what had happened. Preserving the patron’s goodwill appears to be more important to Burhan than demanding answers about the deaths of his own countrymen. 

These miners were neither an invading army nor a rival government. They were people digging for survival on ground reported to be their own country’s soil. Their killing demands accountability, not diplomatic discretion. The junta’s tepid response suggests a grim hierarchy of obligations: the survival of its relationship with Cairo first; the lives of Sudanese citizens a distant second. 

As for Cairo’s behaviour, this looks decidedly like a war crime. If further investigation were to corroborate eyewitness accounts of the plane making several passes over the area before commencing its attack, then clearly they were having a good look at the facts on the ground. And they dropped their bombs anyway. Hello…? Is that The Hague?

Rapid Support Forces strike five power stations in three states controlled by Sudanese army

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have launched a coordinated drone attack against five power stations, causing mass power outages across the country’s east, a government official said.

The drones hit two power stations each in the states of Al-Jazira and Gedaref and one in White Nile state, “resulting in power outages across large parts of these three states”, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Drone strikes in war-torn Sudan have killed hundreds in just three days. Most of the deaths were in West Kordofan state, including in an area contested with South Sudan, sparking fears of a spillover of the war.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly killed 41 people by striking a gathering of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) near Sudan’s southeastern border with Ethiopia in the Blue Nile state last Friday, October 9.

Later on Sunday, October 18, air defenses of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which heads the government, intercepted multiple suicide drones launched by the RSF. The drones targeted Upper Atbara and Setit dam complex in Gedaref state, and the Khashm El-Girba dam in neighboring Kassala.

The following day, on October 19, the RSF launched a wave of drones toward the airport in the national capital, Khartoum. While the air defenses intercepted most of them, one drone struck near the airport, killing four people, including three children.

The RSF took over the capital soon after starting this war in April 2023 against the SAF, the national army with which it had ruled as part of a military junta. The SAF regained control of the capital in March 2025.

In the meantime, later in October 2025, the RSF consolidated control over most of Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur, overrunning the SAF’s last holdout, El Fasher, and depopulating the city in a campaign deemed genocidal by a UN investigation. 

Read more: A bloodbath visible from space: RSF’s massacres in Sudan’s El Fasher   

After thus taking over Darfur – except for some SAF small holdouts on the border with Chad – the RSF has since been pushing eastward toward Khartoum. The Kordofan region in between, comprising three states, has since become a main front of this war.

Here, on October 18, in West Kordofan’s RSF-controlled town of al-Dabba, SAF struck a transport hub that was crowded on a market day, killing 80 people on the spot. 30 others later died in hospital. Another SAF drone also struck a market in the Al-Mujlad town.

Then, on the morning of October 19, SAF drones struck yet another market it suspected to be a source of fuel supply for the RSF, killing 153 people in Abyei, an area disputed by Sudan and South Sudan, ever since the latter seceded from the former in 2011.​

This area in the Nile oil basin has over 4,000 UN peacekeepers and is jointly administered by Sudan and South Sudan. South Sudan’s government summoned Sudan’s ambassador to protest this strike.

A spillover of Sudan’s war into South Sudan could have dire consequences, especially since South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is itself at a heightened risk of slipping back into its own disastrous civil war, which had claimed up to 400,000 lives between late 2013 and mid-2015.​

The death count of the war in Sudan has been lost after exceeding 150,000 as early as June 2024. By the time the war entered its fourth year in April 2026, drone strikes had become the main driver of civilian casualties in this war, causing 80% of all the civilian deaths in the first four months of this year, killing at least 880 people.  

“We are alarmed by the continued deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and that are disrupting essential services,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on October 19.

​Read more: The war in Sudan is “between two wings of a comprador parasitic capitalist class”

The Donald Trump administration has done with Ukrainians and Sudanese this week what it did last month with Salvadorans: it has not terminated Temporary Protected Status (TPS), but it has not renewed it either. The program that provides legal immigration status to 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese citizens was set to expire on Monday, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has declined to comment, which for now leaves them protected from deportation.

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DHS says migrants ‘retain protections’ after temporary protected status was set to expire on Monday

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More than 100,000 people from Ukraine and Sudan can stay in the United States without immediate risk of deportation, the Department of Homeland Security said, in what amounts to a temporary reprieve after their right to stay in the country was set to expire on Monday.

Temporary protected status was set to end on Monday for about 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese. But the DHS said an announcement “will be made at the appropriate time”. Until then, the department said in a written statement, Ukrainians and Sudanese in the US covered by those temporary measures “retain protection”. The department did not indicate how long they could stay or when a final announcement would be made on their status.

Twice in four months, Egyptian warplanes have bombed Sudanese miners inside their own territory, and dozens of bodies have failed to draw from Abdel Fattah al-Burhan a stance worthy of his citizens’ blood. Cairo, for its part, justifies its military operations, while Port Sudan hides behind a fact-finding committee, a cable of condolences and talk of contact between the two leaderships, without daring to name the party accused of killing its citizens.

This is the scene before us: a state acting on the Sudanese border by force of arms, and an army commander who avoids naming the party accused of killing Sudanese, for fear of losing an ally whose approval seems to matter more to him than their lives. On the morning of 10 October 2026, the mining site at Jabal al-Uqaydat in the Shamal al-Wadi area inside Sudan turned into a killing field after it was struck by five consecutive airstrikes, according to the testimony of a survivor relayed by Agence France-Presse. Thousands of miners had been searching for gold in a land exhausted by war; some ended up under the rubble, while others fled to the mountains without water or supplies.

In a significant pinpointing of the site of the bombing, The New York Times, in its report published on 12 October 2026, stated that the targeted mine is located in Sudan’s Red Sea State, about 25 miles from the Egyptian border, or roughly 40 kilometres inside Sudanese territory. Al-Hurra, in its coverage of the June attack, had cited an estimate placing Jabal al-Uqaydat about 20 kilometres inside Sudan; the forty-kilometre distance is cited here as attributed to the American newspaper’s determination of the location of the October strike, which keeps the question of sovereignty and the protection of civilians at the heart of the matter.

Agence France-Presse relayed from survivors that thousands of miners were working at the site, and “Emergency Lawyers” counted 72 dead according to preliminary information, while witnesses told the BBC of more than 60 dead and about 150 wounded. Survivors told Sudan Tribune that the dead numbered at least 200, with more than 15,000 workers fleeing, while the Sudan Doctors Network recorded a preliminary toll of 13 dead and 28 wounded, warning that it could rise.

Cairo Justifies the Bombing While Burhan Avoids Naming the Perpetrator

The “Emergency Lawyers” organization accused the Egyptian air force of targeting civilian miners, considering the attack a violation of international law. When Reuters asked Egyptian security officials about the raid, they did not deny the operation but justified it as ending what they described as border chaos and preventing Egyptian and Sudanese groups from taking control of mining areas.

Two days later, the Egyptian military spokesman announced the continuation of the “third phase” of the campaign, noting that warning leaflets had been dropped on those he described as criminal elements. However, the statement placed the operations inside Egyptian territory and did not include an explicit acknowledgment of carrying out a raid inside Sudan or of the killing of the miners.

Thus Cairo has a military justification for bombing a Sudanese site, while Burhan’s authority is incapable of issuing an explicit condemnation of the party that human rights organizations accuse of killing its citizens. The irony is that the state that is supposed to demand the victims’ rights appeared more concerned about its relationship with Cairo than about naming the party responsible for their blood.

From June to October: The Victims Change, the Silence Remains

The October raid was preceded by a strike that targeted the area on 16 June 2026. Agence France-Presse reported 23 dead, while Sudanese platforms estimated the toll at around one hundred. According to the testimonies received, the operations extended to Jabal al-Uqaydat, the Red Mountain and the area around Souk al-Ansari, and included raids by warplanes and drones followed by a ground incursion. The organization “Darfur Victims Advocacy” relayed from witnesses that an Egyptian force of about sixty armed vehicles had surrounded the miners and detained civilians, some of whom were beaten.

In the days following the June attacks, Radio Dabanga reported the arrival of about two thousand deported miners via the Argeen crossing, according to a local activist, while the crossing’s director spoke of more than three thousand over the preceding days, and the Egyptian army announced the arrest of 223 people, including 136 foreigners. On 22 June, Burhan appeared in Al-Ratj to say, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed: “Our northern neighbor — people must respect it and not cross the borders so as not to cause problems for themselves and for the state.”

Sudanese had been waiting for their army’s commander to defend their blood, but they heard him urging them to respect the borders of the neighbor accused of bombing them. When the raid was repeated in October, the Sovereignty Council repeated the scene: condolences over the “painful incident,” a fact-finding committee, and an assurance that the two countries’ leaderships are in contact.

Burhan’s adviser, Amjad Farid, described the bombing as an unjustified and unacceptable crime, noting that border violations could be addressed without warplanes, but his position did not translate into an announced official protest or a clear path to accountability.

Sudan’s Gold: A Wealth Guarded by Force

Al-Uqaydat lies within the gold-rich Nubian Shield belt, and the Chatham House institute estimated that about 60% of gold production in the Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states is smuggled to Egypt, in quantities exceeding one hundred kilograms per day, and more than sixty tonnes since the outbreak of the war through the end of 2024.

By contrast, official gold exports to Egypt in 2024 did not exceed about 16 million dollars, roughly 1% of Sudan’s total gold exports, according to Central Bank of Sudan data cited in the Chatham House report.

Miners told Sudan Tribune that they had observed drilling machinery and trucks carrying rocks across the border into Egypt, and that an Egyptian patrol had previously warned them against approaching a site it said lies inside Egyptian territory. Al-Hurra relayed testimony about friction between workers and personnel of an Egyptian mining company operating near them.

Egyptian Law No. 193 of 2020 authorizes contracting with the Egyptian Company for Mining and the Management and Exploitation of Quarries and Salt Works, affiliated with the National Service Projects Organization, to exploit the quarries and salt works specified by the law for a period of thirty years, while the state-owned Shalateen Mineral Resources Company is active in the south of the Eastern Desert. The businessman Naguib Sawiris also praised the June operation and linked it to investors’ confidence in the Egyptian mining sector.

In the same month, Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum denied statements attributed to its minister about agreements to establish 108 gold mines in northern Sudan, but the researcher Mohamed al-Hadi considered it likely that the attacks are linked to undisclosed understandings with the Sudanese government, a hypothesis that calls for an independent investigation.

Burhan: When the Ally Becomes More Precious Than the Citizen

The website Al-Hurra relayed from a miner that a group of pro-government joint forces withdrew from the mountain a day before the June raid, and that the Sudanese army did not arrive to evacuate the wounded and collect the bodies until the third day. The testimony raised workers’ suspicions about possible coordination between the two governments, without establishing that it took place.

But Burhan’s silence does not need those suspicions to be proven in order to become a matter of political accountability. Cairo supports the commander of the Sudanese army and considers the war on its borders a threat to its security. Agence France-Presse has verified satellite images showing the repeated presence of Turkish Bayraktar drones at an Egyptian base near Sudan, while reports spoke of facilitating the delivery of drones to the Sudanese army and training its crews inside Egypt, alongside broader military and intelligence cooperation.

An analysis published by the Horn Review in June held that the army’s silence over the raids is linked to Egyptian support for it.

Yet this relationship does not absolve Burhan of responsibility; it multiplies it. Whoever relies on another state’s support in his war cannot make the protection of his citizens a negotiable item, and his need for weapons and political backing must not become an immunity he grants to Cairo at the expense of Sudanese blood.

Sovereignty Tested With the Blood of the Poor

The raids reopen the wound of Halayeb and Shalateen, the disputed triangle under Egyptian control. Sudanese administrative maps confirm that the targeted mining sites lie inside Sudan, while Cairo treats them as part of the border area adjoining the triangle.

Human rights, political and trade union forces have called for an independent international investigation, and the “Sumud” alliance led by Abdalla Hamdok held the Egyptian side directly responsible.

Today, Egypt is required to answer for the bombing and the fall of civilians, not merely to classify them as criminal elements and offer security justifications, and Burhan is required to announce the results of the investigation, determine responsibility, demand compensation and accountability, and take the necessary diplomatic and legal measures.

As for settling for condolences, it is not a defense of sovereignty; it is a declaration that the alliance with Cairo is more precious to the authorities than the Sudanese people’s right to life and justice. At Jabal al-Uqaydat the bill is clear and admits no doubt: the gold crosses the border, the dead remain under the rubble, and Burhan guards his silence.

RT | October 15, 2026

Weapons supplied to Ukraine from US military stocks have been found in the possession of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a senior Russian diplomat has said, citing markings linking them to deliveries to Kiev.

Yulia Zhdanova, head of Russia’s delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control, made the statement on Wednesday at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Forum for Security Co-operation.

Sudanese troops recovered MK19 automatic grenade launchers, M72 anti-tank weapons, and Swedish-made AT4 launchers during an operation near Bara, she said, according to TASS. “A preliminary examination of the markings revealed that these weapons were donated to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in December 2024 from US military stock,” Zhdanova said.

Sudan’s army and the RSF have been at war since April 2023, forcing millions from their homes and exposing civilians to bombardment, hunger, and widespread abuses. In June last year, Sudanese Foreign Ministry official Muhammad Al-Sirr told RT that Ukraine was supplying drones to the paramilitary forces at very low prices and helping its fighters use the technology to strike Sudanese infrastructure.

Sudan descended into chaos in April 2023 when fighting erupted between the national army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The conflict followed months of tension between their commanders, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, over a planned transition to civilian rule. What began in the capital, Khartoum, as a power struggle has devastated the country, killing tens of thousands, displacing millions, and pushing parts of Sudan into famine.

Regional and international peace efforts, including African Union mediation and Saudi-US talks in Jeddah, have repeatedly stalled. In September 2025, the Quad group – the US, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates – proposed a three-month humanitarian truce leading to a permanent ceasefire and a civilian-led political transition. Burhan rejected a subsequent US-led proposal that November, arguing it would dismantle state security institutions while leaving the RSF in place. The paramilitaries said they accepted the truce.

The UAE’s involvement has deepened mistrust of mediation. Sudan’s army-backed government severed diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi in May 2025, accusing it of supporting the RSF. The UAE denies supplying weapons to the paramilitaries. Relations with Washington deteriorated further in September 2026 after the US questioned both factions’ legitimacy. Sudan rejected the remarks and called for peace efforts free from foreign dictates.

Meanwhile, rival administrations have entrenched Sudan’s divisions. Burhan’s government returned to Khartoum in January 2026 after the army recaptured the capital, having operated from Port Sudan during the fighting. In July 2025, the RSF-aligned TASIS coalition announced a rival government based in Nyala, Darfur, with Dagalo heading its governing council. The UN Security Council and African Union rejected the move.

Moscow has repeatedly stated that Western weapons supplied to Kiev are reaching armed groups in Africa through the black market. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova raised the alarm as early as 2022, warning that Stinger missiles, Javelin anti-tank systems, and grenade launchers could enter illicit trading networks worldwide.

In February, Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia addressed the issue at a Security Council meeting, where he also accused Kiev of directly supplying weapons, including drones, and training militants in the Sahel. Zhdanova previously blamed corruption in Ukraine and failures to track Western-supplied military equipment for weapons reaching terrorists and criminal groups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso jointly appealed to the UN Security Council in August 2024, accusing Ukraine of supporting international terrorism following a deadly ambush on Malian forces near Tinzaouaten. Mali severed diplomatic ties with Kiev after Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andrey Yusov said rebels received information enabling the ambush.

Addressing the UN General Assembly last month, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop renewed the accusations, saying Ukraine was backing armed groups undermining his country’s territorial integrity. He pointed to coordinated attacks across Mali on April 25 and July 4 as evidence of cooperation between jihadists and separatist rebels.

Last week, AFP reported that sources within the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-led separatist rebel coalition fighting Mali’s government, acknowledged receiving Ukrainian training, including instruction in operating drones.

The European Commission is promising more support to Egypt, even as Egyptian warplanes reportedly bomb in Sudan and authorities carry out a campaign of violence against the refugees it hosts.

The civil war in Sudan includes reports of genocide, chemical-weapons use, mass rape, and starvation, forcing some 1.2 million Sudanese people into Egypt, which was described as a priority migration-busting partner by commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday (13 October), who also promised continuing support for Cairo.

In a letter sent to the 27 heads of state and government ahead of an EU summit on Thursday in Brussels, she spoke of “offering protection and durable solutions in … host countries”, as well as further aid for Sudanese people who had returned to parts of the country, now deemed relatively safe.

But her warm words stand in sharp contrast to internal EU documents on Sudan, released by the London-based group Statewatch earlier this month, and which speak of an Egyptian-led campaign of violence against the Sudanese it is tasked to help.

“The Egyptian authorities have continued arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation campaign against migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, with a sharp escalation of forced deportations being observed since January 2026,” said the Irish EU presidency, in an internal document written in September.

Estimates suggest Egypt hosts over nine million migrants and refugees.

Some 80 percent are Sudanese, Syrian, Yemeni, and Libyan nationals. Of those, just over 1 million are officially registered as refugees. Most come from Sudan.

And Egypt’s crackdown also comes amid a massive 74 percent funding cut for the UN’s refugee agency in the country, even as the EU’s financial support to Cairo increases, already totalling €5bn.

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The Sudanese army is once again facing mounting international pressure over allegations that it used chlorine-based chemical weapons in its war against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The United States, Germany, Australia, Finland and Belgium pressed Sudan over the allegations at the 113th session of the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), held in The Hague from 6 to 9 October 2026.

The United Kingdom and the European Union also raised Sudan at the session. The EU said the Council had been seized of the matter under Article IX, paragraph 4 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which allows member states to ask the Council to obtain clarification from another member. 

The statements came a month after The New York Times and The Washington Post published separate investigations on 5 September reporting that the Sudanese army ran a secret programme to develop, test and store chlorine-based munitions. 

The material included around 150 documents, photographs, video clips and voice messages, as well as several thousand text messages taken from the phones of senior Sudanese officers, according to The New York Times. The newspaper reported that voice and text messages involving army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan suggest he had direct knowledge of the programme.

A Sudanese military spokesperson rejected the findings as “baseless and without material foundation” and threatened to sue The New York Times in a US court, according to Semafor. Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in July that Washington had presented no evidence for its allegations and that Sudan had repeatedly offered to host US experts for on-site verification.

Belgium Voices Concern

Belgium told the Council that Sudan’s answers so far did not match the seriousness of the allegations. Ambassador Wouter Detavernier, speaking in French on 7 October, said Belgium was concerned by allegations that the army had used chlorine bombs during the civil war, and he asked Sudan’s authorities for more information, according to the Belgian statement.

US Warning

The United States has gone further than the other four countries and imposed two rounds of sanctions on Sudan.

The State Department determined on 24 April 2025 that Sudan’s government had used chemical weapons in 2024, and it announced the finding on 22 May 2025. Washington imposed the first sanctions, restricting US exports and Sudan’s access to US government credit, on 27 June 2025. A second round, which took effect on 20 July 2026, added US opposition to multilateral development bank loans to Sudan, further export restrictions and the suspension of air carrier authority linked to Sudan, according to the Federal Register.

At the Council’s 112th session in July, US Ambassador Nicole Shampaine said Sudan should give the OPCW Technical Secretariat “unhindered, transparent access” and that its national investigative committee could not replace independent verification, according to the Arms Control Association.

This week Shampaine told the Council it must confront Sudan’s continued non-compliance tied to its 2024 use of chemical weapons. She asked regional groups and States Parties to “reject as candidates for this Council those States Parties that remain in noncompliance,” according to the US statement.

Sudan currently holds a seat on the 41-member Council, according to The Standard. In March, the United States warned it would revisit its approach to Sudan’s seat if the matter was not resolved swiftly. Council members are elected by the Conference of the States Parties, which next meets from 23 to 27 November 2026, according to the OPCW calendar.

Germany Points to an Undeclared Programme

Germany’s ambassador, Gudrun Lingner, said new media reporting suggested the 2024 use might have been more than a single incident. “Indications pointing at an undeclared chemical weapons programme have been published,” Lingner said, according to the German statement.

Germany called on Sudan’s government to finish a thorough national investigation, publish it swiftly and cooperate fully and transparently with the OPCW.

Australia Focuses on Storage and Use

Australian Ambassador Gregory French said Australia had noted with alarm media reports that the Sudanese Armed Forces had stockpiled and used chemical weapons. He said Sudan had shared an interim report from its national investigation, and he called on Sudan to give “a genuine and transparent account of any non-compliance with the Convention,” according to the Australian statement.

Finland Seeks Prompt Answers

Finland repeated its serious concern about the allegations and said Sudan’s authorities must address them “in a prompt, objective, and transparent manner,” according to its statement. Finland welcomed the Technical Secretariat’s confirmation that it will monitor the situation.

At least 82 bodies had been recovered, according to local officials and activists, while dozens of other miners were feared trapped or missing. The latest figure represents an increase from the 67 deaths earlier reported by the Sudan Doctors Network as rescue operations continued.

The collapse occurred in an area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting Sudan’s military since April 2023. The continuing war has severely weakened state institutions and access to basic services across large parts of the country.

Limited rescue efforts

In a statement, the Sudan Doctors Network said they lacked basic safety and protective measures required at mining sites. It said search and rescue operations were continuing to locate survivors and people trapped beneath the rubble, warning that the death toll could rise.

The network called out the negligence that had exposed miners to grave risks and called on the authorities controlling the area to protect mining workers, provide medical and logistical support, and prevent unregulated mining activities from continuing without adequate safety measures.

Rescue operations have themselves been severely constrained. Murtada Ahmed, spokesman for the Kordofan Human Rights Observatory, told Radio Dabanga that the operation was progressing slowly because almost no specialized equipment was available. Local residents and miners have largely been forced to rely on their own efforts and basic machinery to recover bodies and search for people trapped underground.

A wider artisanal mining crisis

The disaster in Sudan comes only weeks after another major artisanal mining tragedy in the Central African Republic, where more than 100 people were killed when an artisanal gold mine collapsed following a landslide in the western part of the country.

Informal and small-scale mining provides a livelihood for millions of people and remains an important source of income in communities where formal employment opportunities are limited. At the same time, miners frequently work in dangerous conditions, with limited regulations, protective equipment, geological assessments, and emergency rescue capacity.

In Sudan, gold mining has become particularly important following the country’s economic collapse and war. The sector includes thousands of small-scale and informal operations, while gold-producing areas have also become economically and strategically important to the rival forces fighting for control of the country.

Disaster as Sudan’s war continues

The mine collapse is taking place as the war that has devastated Sudan since 2023 continues, producing widespread displacement, hunger, and the breakdown of essential services.

Read more: The Blue Nile front: Sudan’s war intensifies along Ethiopia’s border

West Kordofan is among the areas affected by the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces. The control of mining areas by armed actors has added another layer of vulnerability for workers and surrounding communities.

The reported detention of Somali soldiers in Ethiopia's Somali Region has drawn attention to a Saudi-backed military training programme in central Somalia and raised the question of whether the initiative is intended solely to rebuild Somalia's national army or could serve a wider regional purpose, writes Mohsin Osman.

Somali authorities have confirmed that troops trained at the Xananbuure camp in Galmudug crossed into Ethiopia. Somalia's National Security Adviser, Aways Haji Yusuf, said on 1 September that the soldiers had permission to visit their families, that the federal government knew they were in Ethiopia's Somali region, and that they took the route through Ethiopia to avoid insecure areas inside Somalia. He added that any further developments would be shared with the media.

That explanation has not settled the number of soldiers involved, the circumstances of their detention or the wider purpose of a foreign-funded programme that has trained thousands of Somali recruits with the help of foreign instructors. Regional outlets have also linked the programme to allegations that Saudi Arabia is supporting recruitment for Sudan's war, with indications that it was designed to supply fighters to the Sudanese Armed Forces.

The crossing and the detention

The incident emerged in late August, when reports placed newly trained Somali soldiers in the custody of Ethiopia's Somali Regional State. Garowe Online reported that some accounts described the men, numbering about 300, were detained and transferred to Jijiga, the regional capital. Sunatimes, citing Somali intelligence sources, pegged the number at 316 but said it had not confirmed that number with Ethiopian authorities.

The soldiers who were said to be travelling in a convoy of hired vehicles were reportedly intercepted and held by regional police. The reports say the detained soldiers had been recruited from Ethiopia's Somali Regional State before joining the Somali federal programme, which Yusuf's statement did not address. Neither Addis Ababa nor the Somali regional government has given a public reason for the detention, according to WardheerNews.

The Saudi-backed military programme in Somalia

The soldiers belong to a class of roughly 3,000 who graduated from Xananbuure, in the Galgaduud region of Galmudug, on 16 August after nearly a year of training. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud presided over the ceremony, which The Defense Post described as the largest cohort trained inside Somalia since the collapse of the central government in 1991, with Saudi military representatives in attendance and instructors from Ukraine, Romania and Sudan delivering the course.

The programme follows a memorandum of understanding on military cooperation that Somalia's Defence Minister, Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, signed with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman in Riyadh on 9 February 2026. Somalia's Ministry of Defence said the agreement covered multiple areas of common interest, and neither government released further details, Al Jazeera reported. Horn Review reported that the initiative aims to train up to 5,000 recruits over nine months, and July reports placed enrolment at 5,107 across two camps in the Guri El area, including about 2,000 recruits from Puntland.

While Saudi Arabia financed the military training programme under the February agreement, there is no evidence that Saudi officials control the recruits' deployment or decide where they serve.

How Sudan entered the story

The Sudan allegation comes from a separate set of reports, not from anything established about the soldiers held in Ethiopia.

Kenya's Standard reported on 24 July that Saudi Arabia was overseeing a programme in Galguduud involving more than 5,000 Somali recruits, run by contractors from Romania, Ukraine, South Africa and Colombia, and that recruits were being prepared for later deployment alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces. The report described the Somali programmes as Saudi-funded and had raised the possibility that some trainees would be sent to Sudan's battlefronts. Ethio Negari also made the same claims three days earlier. However, none of the parties named had commented.

The presence of Sudanese instructors at Xananbuure presents the strongest documented link between the camp and Sudan, although it predates the Saudi agreement. Geeska reported in February, citing Africa Intelligence, that a team of Sudanese military personnel had trained roughly 1,000 recruits in Galmudug over the preceding months without public announcement, under the oversight of Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency.

The Jijiga case also sits alongside a distinct allegation from Ethiopia's north. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed told the House of Peoples' Representatives on 7 July that young people from Tigray, including minors, were being forcibly recruited and smuggled to fight in Sudan's war, and that they were dying in a conflict they neither understood nor had any connection to, according to Addis Standard and other outlets that covered the session. The Tigray People's Liberation Front rejected the substance of his remarks days later, according to a situation report by Europe External Programme with Africa.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are facing fresh accusations of employing chemical weapons in the ongoing conflict against the Rapid Support Forces(RSF), with the latest reports coming from US media outlets, writes Mohsin Osman.

On Saturday (5 September), The New York Times and The Washington Post published dual investigative reports based on leaked intelligence materials. The files include approximately 150 documents, photographs, video clips, and intercepted communications, alongside thousands of text messages retrieved from the phones of Sudanese officers.

The evidence points to an alleged program established in 2024 to manufacture chlorine-based munitions. It details bomb design blueprints, testing operations, and a coordinated cover-up strategy initiated after the plot was uncovered by the United States. The records also outline plans to siphon chlorine gas from a civilian water treatment facility that had originally received the chemical from international aid agencies.

These revelations reignite long-standing allegations of chemical weapons usage that have shadowed SAF leadership since last year, significantly heightening international pressure on the military command.

The United States previously imposed sanctions on Sudan in May 2025 over allegations that the military deployed chemical weapons during the conflict in 2024. The sanctions took effect on July 20, 2025. Authorities in Port Sudan have consistently rejected these accusations, maintaining that they do not produce, stockpile, or use chemical weapons, and emphasizing their adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

A covert programme amid escalating pressure

According to The New York Times, the SAF turned to chemical weapons early in 2024 to break a strategic stalemate, as RSF fighters held firm control over most of the capital, Khartoum.

Leaked records show that Brigadier General Tariq Hussein emerged as a central figure in July 2024, orchestrating the design, planning, and execution of the program. Intercepted messages reveal that Hussein proposed using chlorine to give army forces a tactical edge in the battle for Khartoum. He distributed prototype schematics for an explosive warhead integrated with roughly 33 pounds of chlorine gas, with production commencing that same month.

In messages published by the Times, Hussein noted that the hybrid munitions were designed to maximize lethality—either by shrapnel fragmentation or chlorine gas poisoning—asserting that the explosion would destroy all chemical traces of the attack.

On July 22, an Antonov cargo plane took off from Merowe Airport, roughly 200 miles north of Khartoum, to conduct a test launch. Following the trial, Hussein reported that the experiment was a "100 percent success," attaching a video of a desert explosion and confirming that the munition "hit the target and released the gas."

Brigadier General Amir Idris, identified in records as the supervisor of military drone operations, responded with a single directive: "Top Secret."

Technical hazards and signs of lethality

The communications reveal that the program faced severe technical flaws. Chemical leaks were a recurring issue; on one occasion, workers found dead insects and scorpions on the floor of a hangar after overnight exposure to leaking gas.

The incident underscored the volatile nature of the agent being handled long before it reached the battlefield. Concurrently, the program faced a critical challenge in securing a steady supply of chlorine.

Diverting humanitarian chlorine supplies

According to The New York Times, 20 cylinders of chlorine gas were smuggled across the border from a neighboring country in late August 2024. Hussein calculated that this batch would yield roughly 1,100 bombs.

Hussein subsequently sought internal sources, turning to local civilian infrastructure in violation of international norms. He admitted to sourcing additional chlorine from the Al-Manara water treatment plant in Omdurman—one of the few remaining operational facilities amid the war.

"Al-Manara has some of those cylinders, and we took them from there," Hussein stated in an August 26 voice message to Idris.

The diversion of these supplies carries significant gravity, as the chlorine at the plant was intended for emergency water purification during cholera outbreaks rather than military application.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed to the Times that it had donated 30 chlorine cylinders to the plant in 2023, while CARE reported delivering 35 cylinders across 2024 and 2025. A UNICEF spokesperson added that the organization supplied chlorine to six treatment plants in Khartoum, including Al-Manara, between 2023 and 2025.

By October 2024, Hussein reported manufacturing approximately 300 chemical munitions, most of which were stored at Merowe Airport.

Earlier in September, Hussein sent a notable message to a colleague stating, "They drank the gas," describing an attack on RSF fighters at the Al-Jaili oil refinery north of Khartoum. This account aligns with claims made by the RSF on September 13, when the paramilitary group issued a statement accusing the army of firing "toxic" missiles at the refinery. Footage circulated online at the time showed men in civilian clothing inside the facility wearing oxygen masks.

Command responsibility and cover-up efforts

The New York Times indicates that the program was likely shuttered once U.S. officials detected its existence and moved to apply targeted sanctions.

Intercepted communications reveal that the head of Sudan’s Armed Forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, instructed Hussein to "erase all traces" of the operation. The response back was: "The operation was completed a month ago."

During a subsequent round of measures in June, the U.S. sanctioned Hussein for importing explosives for bomb production, though that specific designation did not explicitly cite chemical weapons.

By that time, Burhan had established an internal committee to investigate the U.S. allegations. According to documents in the file, Hussein himself—the architect of the program—was appointed as an advisor to the panel.

The intelligence indicates that General Burhan was not merely informed after the fact, but was directly involved in overseeing the chemical weapons program. His direct knowledge was a primary factor in the U.S. decision to impose sanctions on him in January 2025.

While proving chemical weapons usage in conflict zones remains complex, arms experts consulted by The New York Times concurred that available evidence strongly points to their deployment in the Sudanese conflict. However, they stressed the necessity of an independent field investigation.

Addressing the findings, the Emergency Lawyers group, a Sudanese legal advocacy organization, issued a statement calling for a transparent international probe. The group urged that "international experts be granted safe, unconditional access to targeted sites, enable the physical examination of munitions fragments and delivery systems, and be permitted to interview witnesses and victims independently and securely."