The gold still ends up in Dubai. Sudan gets less of the value.
The Sudanese pound was already a wounded currency before this latest blow. When the war began in April 2023, it traded at around 600 to the dollar. By the time the UAE quietly stopped accepting commercial flights from Port Sudan in early August of this year, it had already deteriorated badly. Then came the freefall: from 2,200 to 3,600 per dollar in the weeks that followed, a collapse of nearly forty percent in a matter of months.
The mechanism was straightforward, even if the geopolitics behind it are anything but. Port Sudan is the Sudanese army's wartime capital and the country's main gateway to the outside world. The UAE is where Sudan's gold goes — legally and otherwise. When the UAE halted commercial flights from Port Sudan and, according to shipping notices and five industry sources, also stopped maritime traffic through its ports to and from Sudan, the pipeline for Sudan's most valuable export was effectively severed.
The numbers make clear just how exposed Sudan was. In the first half of 2025 alone, the UAE absorbed nearly ninety percent of Sudan's legal gold exports — roughly 8.8 tonnes worth close to $840 million, according to Sudanese central bank data. That gold wasn't just a revenue line. It was the mechanism by which the army-led government paid for fuel and wheat. Since August, residents in army-controlled territory say prices for both have climbed sharply.
The irony is almost too stark to absorb. Sudan's army depends on the UAE for the hard currency that keeps its war effort and its economy functioning. It also accuses the UAE of arming and financing the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group it has been fighting for two and a half years in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions. The UAE denies backing the RSF, though it has not been shy about its frustrations with the army-led government — in August, Emirati authorities accused Khartoum of spreading false accusations and propaganda, without elaborating.
This dependency didn't emerge from nowhere. U.S. sanctions imposed in the late 1990s effectively cut Sudan off from most international banking. Dubai Islamic Bank became the largest shareholder in Sudan's main financial institution, Bank of Khartoum. Most government transactions run through the Abu Dhabi branch of Sudan's El Nilein Bank. The UAE's gold refining capacity dwarfs that of its regional neighbors, and Emirati importers have long sweetened deals with advance payments. Over decades, the relationship calcified into something close to structural dependency.
The smuggled gold trade adds another layer of complexity. According to Mubarak Ardol, the former head of the Sudan Minerals Corporation, smuggled gold moves at roughly four times the volume of official production. Both the army and the RSF are involved, analysts and trade sources say. The UAE has long been the destination for that shadow trade as well.
With the official route blocked, traders and Port Sudan authorities have been casting around for alternatives — Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. None have taken hold as a genuine substitute. What has happened instead, according to Suliman Baldo of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, is that more smuggled gold is flowing through Egypt, which re-exports it in large quantities to the UAE. Egypt captures the arbitrage. The gold still ends up in Dubai. Sudan gets less of the value. Baldo put it plainly: Egypt is the biggest gainer from the current arrangement.
Researcher Marc Ummel of the NGO Swissaid adds that some legal exports have also been rerouted through Qatar and Oman since August — but those shipments, too, tend to find their way to the UAE eventually. The embargo has bent the trade routes without breaking the UAE's gravitational pull on Sudanese gold.
What this episode lays bare is the fragility of a wartime economy built on a single commodity flowing through a single partner. Sudan's finance ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The UAE authorities did not either. In the silence between those two non-responses, a currency keeps sliding and a country's population absorbs the cost.
Notable Quotes
Egypt is the biggest gainer. Gold gets re-exported in large amounts to the UAE, and all the benefit of the difference goes to Egypt.— Suliman Baldo, head of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker
Some of Sudan's legal gold exports have since August been diverted to Qatar and Oman, but those too ultimately land in the UAE.— Marc Ummel, gold trade researcher at NGO Swissaid
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why would the UAE cut off flights now, in the middle of an active war?
The relationship between the UAE and Sudan's army has been deteriorating for a while. The army accuses the UAE of backing the RSF paramilitary. The UAE denies it, but the tension has been building, and the flight ban looks like a pressure move — economic leverage applied quietly.
How does stopping flights translate so directly into a currency collapse?
Gold is Sudan's dominant export by a wide margin. Nearly all of it was going to the UAE. When that route closes, the army-led government loses its main source of hard currency, and without hard currency, the pound has nothing to stand on.
Is there no other buyer willing to step in?
Traders and officials have tried — Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. Nothing has worked as a real replacement. The UAE's refining capacity and its practice of offering advance payments make it uniquely positioned. Other markets can absorb some volume, but not at the same terms.
What about the smuggled gold? Does the embargo affect that too?
It redirects it more than it stops it. More smuggled gold is now moving through Egypt, which re-exports it to the UAE anyway. Egypt captures the margin. The gold still ends up in Dubai. Sudan just gets less of the benefit.
So the embargo hasn't actually cut the UAE off from Sudanese gold — it's just changed who profits from moving it?
Essentially, yes. The UAE's position as the world's second-largest gold trading hub means the metal finds its way there regardless. The embargo punishes Sudan's formal economy without really depriving the UAE of the commodity.
How did Sudan become this dependent on a single partner in the first place?
U.S. sanctions from the late 1990s closed off most international banking options. The UAE filled that vacuum — its banks became Sudan's banks, its refineries became Sudan's refineries. By the time the war started, the dependency was structural, not just convenient.
What does this mean for ordinary people in army-controlled areas?
Fuel and wheat prices have risen sharply since August. Those are the commodities the government was using gold revenue to import. When the revenue dries up, the cost gets passed down.