Fertile land, strategic corridor, support for warring parties, gold, water: behind the war that has been tearing Sudan apart for more than two years, the country's resources are sharpening regional alliances and rivalries.

The conflict, which has pitted General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan's army against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdane Daglo since April 2023, escalated with the RSF's capture of the major city of El-Facher in Darfur at the end of October.

The army enjoys the support of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey, while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rely on that of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to regional experts. Officially, all deny providing direct support to either side.

- Fertile land and strategic crossroads -

The fertile agricultural lands of Sudan, Africa's third largest country, are whetting the appetite of desert countries in the Gulf on the other side of the Red Sea, who are eyeing this "breadbasket".

Before the war, the UAE invested heavily in Sudan, where its companies controlled tens of thousands of hectares. In 2023, oilseeds and animal feed crops were Sudan's main exports to the Emirates after gold. But the conflict, and accusations of collusion between Dubai and the Sudanese Forces, changed everything.

Prior to the 2019 coup, the Saudis and Qataris had also negotiated sometimes massive investments in agriculture in Sudan.

Furthermore, "thanks to its coastline on the Red Sea, linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, Sudan has the ability to influence global maritime traffic, security and trade via its ports and naval bases," emphasizes Alia Brahimi, a researcher at the Atlantic Council.

This strategic corridor, through which 10 to 12% of international maritime freight flows pass, is also closely monitored by the Gulf countries, but not only them.

In recent years, Russia, the UAE, and Türkiye have attempted to build a naval base there or obtain port concessions, but negotiations have failed or been suspended.

- The Emirates and their allies -

Shortly after the start of the conflict, the pro-army government severed diplomatic ties with the Emirates. It accuses them of having sided with the FSR and of supporting them with weapons and mercenaries sent via Chad, Libya, Kenya, Ethiopia or Somalia, by land or air - which Abu Dhabi denies.

Last May, Amnesty International published an investigation showing, from photos of bomb debris, that Chinese weapons were supplied to the FSR by the United Arab Emirates.

Since the start of the war, Amdjarass airport in eastern Chad, an officially neutral country, has been a hub for cargo planes from the Emirates to the neighbouring Darfur region, a stronghold of the RSF, according to UN reports and several experts.

More recently, eastern Libya, controlled by the powerful Marshal Haftar, has supplanted Chad as the Emirati "main supply route" to Sudan, says Emadeddin Badi, a researcher at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Since June, "around 200 military cargo flights have landed in eastern Libya, between Benghazi and Kufra, presumably delivering weapons to the FSR," he said.

According to a report by the American NGO The Sentry, the Haftar camp, "indebted" to Abu Dhabi which has supported it in Libya since 2014, is "a key supplier of fuel for the FSR", which thanks to this "continuous supply" has been able to move and conduct operations in Darfur.

- The thirst for gold -

Following the independence of South Sudan in 2011, where Sudan's largest oil fields were concentrated, gold emerged as the central resource of Sudanese exports.

Before the war, Sudan produced just over 80 tons of gold per year, according to the Central Bank. Some of it was exported, reaching a value of $2.85 billion in 2021. Since the start of the conflict, declared gold production has fallen, to the benefit of parallel mining and export networks, according to a recent study by Chatham House.

"The economic rivalry between the FAS (Sudanese Armed Forces) and the FSR in the extraction and trade of gold is a determining factor in the current war," this research institute believes.

Sudanese gold often ends up in Dubai in the Emirates, whether it comes from the FAS side (and then transits via Egypt, an ally of the Sudanese army) or from the FSR side (extracted notably from the mines of Jebel Amer, Hashaba and Songo in Darfur, and then exported by Chad, Libya, South Sudan and other African countries).

The Emirates imported almost twice as much gold last year as in 2023 (29 tonnes compared to 17), according to the NGO Swissaid, which accuses them of being a "hub for conflict gold".

"Gold not only ensures the loyalty of fighters, the trafficking of missiles or the purchase of drones: it also confers an obvious economic interest in the continuation of the conflict," summarizes Alia Brahimi.

- Drone Warfare -

Turkey – like Iran – supplied the Sudanese army with long-range drones that played a "decisive role" in its recapture of the capital, Khartoum, which was held by the Revolutionary Security Forces (RSF) until March, according to Emadeddin Badi. However, these drones, designed to spy on or bomb the enemy, have been less effective in recent months because the RSF has modernized its air defenses, "which partly explains the fall of El-Facher," he added.

In early November, the political wing of the FSR accused, without naming it, "a neighboring country" of targeting its troops with deadly drones. According to pro-FSR media, this country is Egypt.

For its part, the pro-army government accuses the Emirates of having delivered drones, including Chinese ones, to the FSR.

Finally, "the FSR, from the beginning of the conflict, recruited a whole contingent of mercenaries abroad," Russians, but also Syrians, Sahelians and Colombians, says Thierry Vircoulon, associate researcher at the French Institute of International Relations.