The bloody war over Sudan's gold...

udan has been writhing in the grip of a brutal and bloody civil war for nearly two years. But recent events have begun to reach a point that is finally drawing global attention. Especially the images emerging from the Darfur region show, in the truest sense of the word, that a genocide is taking place. Unlike what Israel has done in Gaza, this time the atrocity is happening within the Muslim world itself — both the killers and the victims are from the same side.

Let’s begin with the visible main actor of this brutality, then move to the power behind the curtain — and its true motivation.

The commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohammed Hamideti, was born in 1975 in Kutum, northern Darfur. From a young age, like all men of his tribe, he entered the camel trade and gradually came to lead massive caravans of thousands of camels across Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, and Libya. Just before the civil war broke out in Darfur, after his brothers were killed in a raid by rival tribes, he formed his own armed group.

In 2003, when the tribes that had rebelled against the central government in Khartoum launched what would soon turn into a full-scale civil war, Hamideti and his armed followers joined the fighting. This group, which became even more influential than the regular Sudanese army in Darfur, consisted of militia fighters known as “Janjaweed.”

There are three main explanations for the origin and meaning of the word “Janjaweed.” The first claims the Janjaweed were a group of looters and raiders of Chadian origin, named after the region they came from. The second traces the name to a Darfuri bandit leader named Hamid Janjaweed. The third — and most widely accepted — explanation suggests the word comes from a local term meaning “armed horsemen.” Whichever etymology is correct, one thing is certain: under Mohammed Hamideti’s leadership, the Janjaweed committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity following the outbreak of the Darfur crisis in 2003. The fighting killed tens of thousands and forced nearly a million people into refugee status.

During this period, Hamideti also honed his diplomatic skills. In 2006, at the height of the Darfur crisis, he met in Khartoum with then-President Omar al-Bashir. Although the Sudanese government had long denied taking support from the Janjaweed to suppress the Darfur rebellion, the Bashir-Hamideti meeting effectively confirmed those claims. Under Bashir’s orders, the forces under Hamideti’s command were granted official status as the Border Guard Force. In 2011, this force changed its name to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Over time, the RSF became a “state within a state” — an army within the army. On April 11, 2019, it played a direct role in the military coup that overthrew Omar al-Bashir. The fact that one of the main figures behind Bashir’s ouster was none other than Mohammed Hamideti — the man he had once empowered and elevated — came as no surprise to close observers of Sudan.

After Bashir’s fall, Sudan became a new battlefield within the Arab world. The country’s official ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, received backing from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, while Hamideti secured the support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The massacres and atrocities we are witnessing today are being carried out with the heavy weapons, ammunition, and warplanes supplied to the RSF through the UAE.

The UAE’s open involvement in Sudan’s war is driven by one key motive: the country’s enormous gold reserves. In the first half of 2025 alone, the amount of gold officially transferred from Sudan to the UAE is estimated at 8.8 tons. Even though Sudan’s central government knows that the UAE is backing the group fighting against it, it continues to sell gold to the Emirates simply to meet its citizens’ basic needs. Yet it is well known that far larger quantities of gold are being smuggled out illegally and sold to the world market via Dubai.

Behind this bloody war over Sudan’s gold — fought over the dead bodies of Sudanese civilians — stand some of the same familiar actors who always appear wherever global finance is at stake. You can easily guess who they are.