Gifting gold at Christmas has been a factor because the very first. And there are few higher locations to purchase it than Dubai’s Gold Souk, which is reputed to be the most important and most cost-effective gold market on this planet.
Cut price-hunters have flocked right here since earlier than the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was even a rustic. Again within the early 1900s, retailers from India and Iran started hawking gems and valuable metals near the twisting waterway often known as Dubai Creek. Right this moment, greater than 500 shops line the Gold Souk’s slim alleys, filled with pearls, platinum rings, silver earrings, and diamond-encrusted necklaces—as effectively its namesake valuable metallic, which will be purchased as jewellery, cash, or biscuits.
“A major motive for its reputation is security,” Fahad Khan, a Pakistani from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who has labored in Dubai’s Gold Souk for 20 years, tells TIME. “Individuals can stroll round with gold in your hand, and no person will hassle you. Most individuals come right here, buy 24 carat or 22 biscuits, return to their very own international locations they usually promote it.” Little marvel that gold is Dubai’s prime overseas commerce commodity, dwarfing oil 4 to at least one in 2020.
As Christmas approaches, Dubai’s Gold Souk goes into overdrive—each as a consequence of vacationers stocking up with low cost presents and since November to February is when gold costs traditionally dip, incentivizing consumers. These months additionally coincide with peak combating season in the course of the catastrophic civil battle in Sudan. Which may appear to be a tenuous segue, however there’s a lot to attach the 2.
Whereas the scourge of blood diamonds has been well-documented (and immortalized by the 2006 Leonardo DiCaprio movie), the position of blood gold is extra insidious however no much less ruinous. And it’s gold that has been one of many major drivers of the Sudan battle, permitting each side to gas their battle machines, particularly after world gold costs reached file highs in 2024. “Gold has change into the foreign money of this battle,” says Kholood Khair, a Sudanese coverage analyst and founding director of Confluence Advisory.
The UAE is the world’s third largest importer of gold, which is in flip Sudan’s most essential commodity, accounting for 70% of exports. This dynamic makes the UAE a main actor within the war-torn Northeast African nation of fifty million, the place greater than 20,000 individuals have been killed, 7 million internally displaced, and almost 2 million pressured throughout borders as refugees since combating broke out in April 2023.
Sudan’s battle is principally being waged between the federal government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Fast Assist Forces (RSF)—ostensibly over the transition to free elections, although tensions have simmered for years. The RSF was shaped out of the Janjaweed fighters of former President Omar al-Bashir, who dominated Sudan for 3 many years earlier than his ouster in a well-liked rebellion in 2019. That revolution delivered to energy Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who later cemented his place in a 2021 coup and at present is combating RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, higher often known as Hemeti. Al-Burhan’s authorities accuses the UAE of backing the RSF, which has allegedly dedicated ethnic cleaning in Darfur.
The UAE denies any overt position within the battle. In a press release, the UAE’s Everlasting Mission to the U.N. denounced “spurious allegations” that it has been stoking the violence. “We reaffirm our help for efforts to de-escalate tensions, implement a ceasefire and advance negotiations resulting in the restoration of a reliable authorities that’s consultant of all Sudanese individuals.”
However few unbiased observers are satisfied. Leaked paperwork allegedly displaying Emirati passports recovered from battlefields recommend the UAE has been stealthily deploying troops in Sudan. U.N. sanctions displays additionally described accusations that the UAE had offered army help to the RSF as “credible.” Even the Grammy-winning American rapper Macklemore canceled an October live performance in Dubai over the UAE’s alleged position “within the ongoing genocide and humanitarian disaster” in Sudan.
“The UAE has taken a really clear place supporting the militia towards the military, together with logistical help, monetary help, but additionally sending arms by means of trafficking routes,” says Might Darwich, an affiliate professor specializing in Center Japanese politics on the College of Birmingham.
At one degree, Sudan is one more proxy battle between the Center East’s squabbling theocracies, with Qatar and Iran main backers of the SAF. However the UAE additionally sees Sudan as a resource-rich, strategically positioned alternative to increase its affect and management throughout Africa and the Center East.
The very fact the UAE imports 90% of meals provides has made meals safety considered one of its highest priorities, prompting big funding in farmland abroad. It particularly eyed Africa, for which Sudan was the most important agricultural producer, with two UAE corporations already farming over 50,000 hectares in its north. Nonetheless, the battle has reworked the continent’s breadbasket into probably the world’s worst famine for 40 years, with 50% of Sudan’s inhabitants requiring humanitarian assist.
On the identical time, Sudan’s official gold exports generated $1.5 billion in income within the first 10 months of 2024, almost all destined for the UAE. That doesn’t embrace a comparable quantity smuggled out through Chad, Libya, Ethiopia, and Egypt by the RAF, which controls gold fields in Sudan’s east. Some “50–80% of [Sudan’s] gold is smuggled overseas… primarily by means of the UAE,” Ahmed Soliman, senior analysis fellow with the Africa Program at Chatham Home, informed a current podcast.
However the world lust for gold isn’t just wreaking havoc in Sudan, with the UAE allegedly complicit in laundering illicit gold from the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere. In accordance with a Might report by the NGO Swissaid, some 40% of all African gold exports are undeclared, of which 93% goes to the UAE. As well as, Russia’s Wagner militia can be closely concerned within the commerce, serving to funnel some $2.5 billion of African gold to Vladimir Putin’s battle of alternative in Ukraine, in accordance with the Blood Gold Report. On Nov. 18, Russia even vetoed a U.N. Safety Council draft decision on defending civilians in Sudan that will have urged fighters to right away stop hostilities and have interaction in dialogue.
In fact, the UAEs alleged position in laundering gold is nothing new. In 2016, Reuters reported that the UAE declared gold imports from 25 African international locations—value $7.4 billion—which had not declared any exports to the UAE. In complete, the UAE declared $3.9 billion extra in gold from throughout the 21 different supply international locations than was declared of their exports. The opacity of gold provide chains means American shoppers would possibly very effectively be funding Sudan’s battle at present. The primary exporter of gold to the U.S. is Switzerland, whose prime gold provider is the UAE. “The UAE doesn’t do due diligence so long as gold makes its markets cash,” says Khair. “It takes it from wherever.”
What’s the worldwide group doing? Little or no, it appears, with the UAE’s comparatively pro-Israel stance amid the battle in Gaza shopping for it diplomatic cowl. “The U.S. and Israel have this conception of the UAE as among the many only a few international locations within the reasonable camp within the area, and they might not wish to lose that companion at this level,” says Harwich.
It’s apathy that leaves shoppers who could merely wish to purchase an ethically-sourced glistening present for family members this vacation season with little or no recourse. Provides Khair: “Sudan’s battle chests are filled with gold.”
