Sudan Nashra: Continued buildup around Obeid as RSF looks to isolate city, drone campaign turns life into ‘nightmare’ | RSF pushes into Darfur’s Zaghawa tribal lands | Cairo arranges diplomatic push on Sudan, Khartoum arrives with same hardline demands | Fuel import financing crisis gives central bank new way into gold sector, sources say

Subscribe to our Lens on Sudan newsletter here . As fears grow that a battle with catastrophic consequences could soon break out in Obeid, regional and international efforts to prevent another major escalation have accelerated. On June 20, Cairo convened a four-party meeting with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. On its sidelines, a meeting was arranged between a Sudanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Mohie Eddin Salem and US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos and another with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. A source in the Turkish ruling party described the diplomacy as the beginning of a regional framework on Sudan led by Cairo, Ankara and Riyadh. The Sudan discussions during the four-party meeting focused on whether the 2023 Jeddah agreement could be reworked into a framework capable of winning the Sudanese government’s backing after a succession of failed initiatives, according to a former Sudanese ambassador. The bilateral meeting with the US, meanwhile, was intended to gauge whether Khartoum was prepared to move in that direction ahead of Boulos’ briefing to the United Nations Security Council at the end of the week. Yet the delegation arrived carrying the same negotiating position it has maintained for months, built around the military establishment’s insistence that the Rapid Support Forces be dismantled before any political process begins. According to the Turkish source, that remains the central divide separating Khartoum from international efforts focused first on securing a humanitarian truce. The same fault line surfaced days later before the UN Security Council. Briefing members on Friday, Boulos said Washington developed a new humanitarian truce proposal through close consultations with Sudanese officials, in coordination with Egypt and with Saudi backing but that it was nevertheless rejected by the Transitional Sovereignty Council. Sudan’s UN ambassador Al-Harith Idriss disputed that, saying TSC chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan instead responded with amendments, while reiterating Khartoum’s commitment to the Jeddah framework and its rejection to “any process that benefits” the RSF. The exchange also exposed the schism over the political process. Boulos argued that dialogue should be independent of the armed parties and shielded from their influence, but Idriss maintained that the armed forces and security agencies could not be excluded since they are responsible for implementing security arrangements. As diplomacy so far struggles to bridge those differences, Washington simultaneously stepped up pressure on both sides of the war. On Friday, the US sanctioned procurement and recruitment networks linked to both the RSF and the military, tightened export restrictions, barred Sudan’s state-owned air carriers from operating in the US and opposed international financial assistance to Sudan. In announcing the measures, the US Treasury Department called on both sides to accept an “immediate, unconditional three-month humanitarian truce.” For hundreds of thousands of people in Obeid, however, the cost of the looming battle is already mounting. The military’s air defenses continued to try and intercept RSF drones over the city this week, but several strikes hit their targets, killing at least six people. According to a local activist, the weeks-long drone attacks have turned daily life into a “nightmare.” Repeated strikes on fuel infrastructure have driven up the cost of basic goods, and the damage caused by last week’s strike on the city’s power substation has left people struggling to access drinking water. While the drone campaign continued over Obeid, both sides also reinforced their positions around the city, according to the activist and a senior military officer. Beyond Kordofan, the RSF is also stepping up pressure in North Darfur’s Zaghawa tribal lands along the Chadian border. According to a tribal leader, the RSF is amassing forces around Tina, where months of fighting over the strategic border town appear to be giving way to another offensive. Tina has remained on the front line since the fall of Fasher, as it is one of the few remaining pockets held by the military and allied forces in Darfur. Capturing it would give the RSF control over a key cross-border corridor linking Chad to the paramilitary group’s fronts stretching eastward in Kordofan’s direction. The renewed push through the Zaghawa lands saw the RSF capture Ambro on Tuesday before advancing on the nearby Furawiya village the following day. A tribal leader said fighters looted and burned homes in Ambro, forcing residents to flee. To the southeast, the Blue Nile State front saw both the military and the RSF make territorial gains. The military retook Bar in the Geisan locality, while the RSF captured the military position at Sarkam in the neighboring Kurmuk locality, RSF and military sources told Mada Masr. *** RSF maintains pressure on Obeid, targets logistical lines across North, South Kordofan The RSF strikes a fuel depot in Obeid, North Kordofan, June 26. - Courtesy: Arab Defense News on X The military’s air defenses in Obeid continued this week to try and fend off the weeks-long RSF drone campaign targeting fuel and civilian infrastructure and supply routes, as the paramilitary group presses ahead with efforts to isolate the city ahead of a ground offensive. However, several drones hit their targets this week, killing at least six people. The campaign has left Obeid’s hundreds of thousands of residents living under the constant risk of strikes that kill and injure civilians week after week. Damage to power infrastructure left much of the city struggling to access drinking water, with an activist in Obeid describing long queues waiting at wells and water tankers. Following last week’s massive RSF deployment that triggered a wave of international warnings over the fate of the city, the activist told Mada Masr that the group continued to call in reinforcements this week along multiple axes surrounding Obeid. The buildup, they said, appears aimed at besieging the city from the north, west and south while cutting the road linking it to Rahad to the southeast. A senior military officer told Mada Masr that RSF forces have yet to launch direct attacks on military positions or defensive lines around Obeid. According to the officer, military troops and equipment arrived on Wednesday and Thursday to reinforce the city. Military drones carried out strikes throughout the week on RSF positions north, northwest and west of Obeid, in Hamra al-Sheikh, Sodary, Gamama, Gabra al-Sheikh and Bara, killing and wounding dozens of fighters and destroying military vehicles, they added. Drones, meanwhile, hovered over Obeid throughout the week, striking neighborhoods and fuel depots and trucks in an attempt to disrupt fuel supplies, the activist said. On Sunday night, an RSF drone hit a sewage truck and a fuel station in the northern part of the city, killing four people and injuring around 13 others, three of them critically, a medical source told Mada Masr. The following day, a drone struck a vehicle carrying a Katyusha rocket launcher in the Karima neighbourhood, according to two eyewitnesses. They said the attack caused munitions to explode and scatter across the area, with some landing near the Unified Shelter Camp, one of the largest displacement camps inside Obeid. The Sudan Doctors Network said two displaced people were killed and 17 others, including children, were wounded. The military’s air defenses managed to shoot down an RSF strategic drone over the city on Thursday, the military officer told Mada Masr. For residents, the activist said, the sustained attacks have turned daily life into a “nightmare.” Beyond the casualties and the constant threat, repeated attacks on fuel infrastructure have sent black-market fuel prices to record levels, driving up transport costs and bread prices. A drone strike on the city’s main power substation last week, which caused a citywide blackout, also triggered a severe water crisis after pumping stations lost power, leaving residents to queue for hours for drinking water at wells and water tankers, they added. The RSF’s efforts to disrupt supply routes extended to Um Rawaba to the east. A local official told Mada Masr that drones struck two bridges on the road linking the city to the Abbasiya Tagali area in South Kordofan on Sunday. The missiles caused only minor damage to one bridge and traffic remained largely unaffected, according to the official. They said that the attack appeared intended to cut off links between the eastern Nuba Mountains and North Kordofan. Doing so would isolate military units from one another while increasing pressure on Obeid and South Kordofan’s Kadugli and Dalang. The disruption could also affect Abu Gubeiha, home to the military’s 10th Infantry Division and a key operational hub for operations in Kadugli, Dalang, Kauda and Um Deheilib, according to the official. The drone campaign this week also reached White Nile State. A security source told Mada Masr that a strategic drone struck Koraymat fuel station in Kosti on Saturday, killing one civilian and injuring 14 others, some critically. Another drone hit a fuel station in Rabak, the state capital, on Thursday, killing two people and wounding several others, according to the source. *** RSF captures Ambro in Zaghawa tribal lands, amasses forces around Tina The RSF raids a village in the Ambro locality, North Darfur, June 23. - Courtesy: @AbedaMoham6183 on X The RSF captured the town of Ambro in North Darfur on Tuesday, as the paramilitary group presses a renewed offensive along the Chadian border, a tribal leader in the area told Mada Masr. According to the leader, RSF fighters looted and burned homes in the town, before seizing the nearby Furawiya village the following day. North Darfur’s Popular Resistance said the assault on Ambro killed and injured civilians and forced large numbers of families to flee into worsening humanitarian conditions. The paramilitary group also attacked the Meksi and Orshi reservoir areas in the Ambro locality over the past week, the tribal leader added. The advances bring the RSF deeper into the Zaghawa territory, where the military retains its last positions in Darfur following the fall of Fasher. The region also straddles a strategic supply route from Chad that the RSF has repeatedly tried to secure in order to strengthen logistical links to fronts stretching eastward in Kordofan’s direction. According to the tribal leader, the RSF is now amassing forces near the strategic town of Tina in the Tina locality bordering Ambro, where they said fighting is expected to flare in the coming days. A vital node in the Chad-Darfur supply network, Tina has remained on the front line since the fall of Fasher. The border town has seen repeated mobilizations and clashes, while its position opposite the Chadian town of Tina has drawn the violence across the border. Ground fighting and drone strikes have spilled into Chad on multiple occasions, and civilians have been killed and injured on both sides. The Sudanese Tina’s surrounding village belt, caught between military positions to the rear and RSF advances from the east, has come under successive waves of attacks on civilians. A field source told Mada Masr in April that since Fasher’s capture, around 5,700 families have been displaced from villages across the locality. The tribal leader said the latest campaign aims not only to capture territory, but also to clear the area of its residents, creating a secure corridor for weapons, equipment and reinforcements moving from Libya through Chad. *** RSF, military advance in Blue Nile State The military announces its recapture of Bar in the Geisan locality, Blue Nile State, June 23. - Courtesy: The Fourth Infantry Division in Damazin on Facebook The Blue Nile State front saw territorial gains by both the military and the RSF this week, while the paramilitary group also suffered its first declared defection in the region. On Tuesday, the military said that forces from its 13th Brigade recaptured Bar in the Geisan locality from the RSF-allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North faction led by Joseph Tuka. According to the Fourth Infantry Division in Damazin, the operation resulted in the capture of fighters as well as weapons and military equipment. A military field source told Mada Masr that the assault followed a combing operation through Abdagla and Ashambu before troops stormed Bar, one of the faction’s main strongholds in the region. The RSF claimed its own advance on the front. In the neighboring Kurmuk locality, fighters released videos on Saturday announcing they captured Sarkam, southwest of Sali. An RSF source confirmed to Mada Masr that the area is now under their control, saying fighters stormed the military base in Sarkam, seized combat vehicles, weapons and ammunition and forced military troops to withdraw toward Sali, a key military command center for operations in southern Blue Nile. The week’s fighting was also marked by the RSF’s first public defection in Blue Nile. Commander Deifallah Adam told Al-Arabiya on Wednesday that he left the group and apologized for abuses committed during the fighting. Describing how his unit reached Blue Nile, Adam said fighters were flown from Nyala to the Chadian town of Um Jaras before boarding civilian aircraft to Asosa in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region. From there, he said, they travelled to Yabus in the far south of Blue Nile, where they were armed ahead of operations in the area. A military source told Mada Masr in March that the offensive that culminated in the capture of Kurmuk at the time was launched by thousands of fighters crossing into Sudan from the Ethiopian towns of Asosa and Dul before advancing on the city. *** Cairo arranges diplomatic push on Sudan, Khartoum arrives with same hardline demands A Sudanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Mohie Eddin Salem meets his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo, June 20. - Courtesy: The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Facebook As warnings mount over a potential battle for Obeid and international efforts to revive diplomacy around Sudan gather momentum, Cairo hosted a round of meetings on June 20 that brought together key regional and international actors involved in discussions over the war. While there was a hope that the meeting could create alignment on a renewed push to bring a conclusion to the war ahead of a United Nations briefing on Sudan, the gap between the military’s hardline stance and the international consensus toward compromise that was present in the Cairo meeting boiled over and into the public eye during the Security Council session at the end of the week. But before things went off the rails, a Sudanese delegation led by Foreign Minister Mohie Eddin Salem sat down on June 20 for what a Sudanese Foreign Ministry source said was a sequence of Egypt-arranged meetings on the sidelines of a four-party discussion that included Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey alongside US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos. One objective of the meetings, according to the Foreign Ministry source, was to reopen direct communication between Khartoum and Washington after months in which contacts largely stalled. According to a former Sudanese ambassador to the European Union, the meetings also provided the setting for a renewed US-Saudi effort to engage the Sudanese government in discussions over a revised 2023 Jeddah agreement. But the Foreign Ministry source and a former official in Prime Minister Kamel Idris’ office said the delegation arrived carrying the same roadmap the military-backed government has used to deflect every previous ceasefire proposal, presenting it once again as the only acceptable point of departure. The flurry of diplomacy came as Boulos prepared to brief the UN Security Council on Sudan on Friday. Internationally sponsored consultations among Sudanese political actors have picked up pace in recent weeks. At the same time, mounting concern over military developments around Obeid has lent greater urgency to international efforts, with humanitarian officials warning that a major battle there could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe comparable to the fall of Fasher. The Sudanese delegation first met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty, where discussions focused on Egypt’s efforts to bridge gaps between Sudan’s government and key international actors, foremost among them the US, according to the Foreign Ministry source. That was followed by a four-party meeting involving Abdel Atty, Boulos, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. Although public statements framed the talks in broad regional terms, the source said a significant portion of the discussion revolved around Sudan, including proposals for a humanitarian ceasefire. The 2023 Jeddah agreement featured prominently in the talks, the former Sudanese ambassador said. Participants examined possible revisions aimed at reconciling the framework with the current military and political realities, they added. Yet the effort comes months after a failed US-Saudi attempt to achieve precisely that. Saudi Arabia returned to the forefront of mediation late last year after Burhan reached out to Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman to object to the latest Quad proposal led by Boulos. The de facto leader subsequently pressed US President Donald Trump to intervene in the Sudan file. Together with the Sudanese Armed Forces’ improving battlefield position — bolstered by support from Egypt and Turkey, among other actors, in the wake of Fasher’s fall — the Saudi engagement strengthened Burhan’s negotiating hand. In November, Burhan appeared before his senior commanders to reject the Quad proposal, throwing his weight behind bin Salman’s initiative and reasserting the Jeddah agreement as the sole basis for any ceasefire. He repeatedly insisted on its prerequisites: the RSF’s disarmament, withdrawal from areas seized after the Jeddah talks and relocation to designated military camps. Washington and Riyadh moved to revise it. In January, the two countries circulated a new humanitarian truce initiative built around a modified version of the framework. The initiative sought to facilitate humanitarian access while adapting the agreement to realities that emerged since the fall of Fasher. But it, too, was rejected. The military-led government objected to provisions that would have allowed RSF-affiliated civil administrations to remain in place. According to the former ambassador, Washington and Riyadh are now making a new attempt, seeking to modify the Jeddah framework into a set of humanitarian, security and political arrangements to be discussed with the Sudanese government, rather than presented as a finalized proposal. That objective formed part of discussions during a meeting between the Sudanese delegation and Boulos, arranged by Egypt on the sidelines of the four-party talks. According to a former official in Prime Minister Kamel Idris’s office who remains in contact with the US side, discussions with Boulos focused primarily on the US vision for restarting a political process and on possible ways of overcoming the current impasse. The source said Boulos has recently intensified contacts with a broad range of Sudanese actors, including both the government and the RSF, as he was preparing his briefing to the UN Security Council during which he was set to present a practical framework that can be built upon during the coming period. But a former Sudanese diplomat said the Sudanese government and Western capitals are “not on the same wavelength” with regard to the future political process. According to the former diplomat, proposals advanced by Boulos continue to rest on the assumption that the warring parties should be incorporated into new political arrangements as equal participants. Khartoum, however, rejects that premise outright. The Sudanese delegation therefore arrived in Cairo carrying the same roadmap that Prime Minister Kamel Idris has promoted since late last year, according to the former diplomat. The plan calls for restoring state control across Sudanese territory, removing RSF forces from civilian areas, disarming the group and recognizing the government as the sole legitimate authority during the current phase — the military establishment’s core demands. The Foreign Ministry source said officials reiterated that position throughout their meetings, rejecting any approach that places the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF on equal footing. The tug-of-war that emerged during the talks played out publicly before the UN Security Council on Friday. Boulos said that a proposal “just recently developed through close consultations with the Sudanese foreign minister and other members of the sovereign council, in coordination with our Egyptian partners” and “welcomed by our Saudi partners,” was presented to the TSC. “There is a clear path to peace. It begins with a nationwide humanitarian truce that we have put forward to the parties, repeatedly […] But this has been repeatedly rejected by the sovereign council, including this morning’s rejection of our most recent text,” Boulos said. Sudan’s UN ambassador Al-Harith Idriss pushed back. While insisting on the Jeddah agreement as the sole framework for negotiations and repeating its demands, Idriss said Sudan remained open. “The government does not oppose a ceasefire, but we reject any process that benefits the militia […] We reject that we withdraw from cities under military control,” Idriss said, arguing that the armed forces provide protection to civilians. Idriss told the council that Burhan had sent him a message during the session with the reply he gave to Boulos, “but it seems Mr. Boulos didn’t find the time to read it.” Idriss said that Burhan’s response included “an amended schedule for the withdrawal and for establishing peace.” Boulos requested the floor again at the end of the session, saying he was “extremely pleased” to hear that Burhan has “apparently accepted” the latest proposal rather than reject it. The exchange also exposed the schism over the political process. Boulos argued that dialogue should be independent of the armed parties and shielded from their influence, but Idriss maintained that the armed forces and security agencies could not be excluded since they are responsible for implementing security arrangements. For the former diplomat, however, the significance of the Cairo meetings extended beyond efforts to reopen channels between Khartoum and Washington. One of the most notable developments, they said, was Turkey’s increasingly prominent role in discussions over Sudan’s future. Ankara has become a more consequential actor in the Sudan file since the fall of Fasher. Alongside the regional effort to bolster the military’s position on the ground, Turkey has steadily expanded its engagement with Sudan through political contacts, humanitarian assistance and economic backing. That role was reflected in a meeting between Salem and Fidan following talks with Boulos. According to the Foreign Ministry source, discussions focused on Turkey’s future role in Sudan and opportunities to support stabilization and reconstruction efforts. The source said that Ankara is now assuming a more visible place in regional consultations on the war. A Turkish source in the ruling Justice and Development Party commenting to Mada Masr on the Cairo talks said, “We might be witnessing an attempt to build a regional framework led by Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” According to the source, Egypt provides geographic and security weight while Turkey contributes political influence and economic and defense capabilities, and Saudi Arabia offers a regional umbrella and a negotiation track rooted in its experience from hosting the Jeddah talks. That said, Turkey is also not aligned with the military’s hardline stance. The main obstacle to a breakthrough for the Saudi-Egyptian-Turkish push, the source said, remains the gap between the military’s insistence on dismantling the RSF and ending its military existence as an independent armed force and international efforts that prioritize a humanitarian truce before agreement is reached on the future of the military establishment and the ruling power. Commenting on the Cairo talks, Al-Wathig al-Berair, the secretary-general of the National Umma Party and a leading figure in the opposition Sumud coalition, said Egypt’s diplomatic push reflects an effort to widen the circle of influential regional actors involved in addressing the Sudan crisis. But such efforts, Berair stressed, can only succeed if they reinforce existing initiatives rather than create competing processes that further fragment international engagement. The problem that has consistently faced diplomatic mechanisms, he argued, is the absence of political will among the warring parties and their continued pursuit of a military solution. *** US sanctions supply, recruitment networks on both sides Washington imposed on Friday sanctions targeting individuals and companies accused of supplying foreign fighters and weapons to the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF. The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the procurement and recruitment networks profiting from the war “have enabled both sides to expand the scale and intensity of the conflict” and jeopardize the prospects for a humanitarian truce. The sanctions were accompanied by additional measures, including tighter export restrictions, a ban on Sudan’s state-owned air carriers from operating in the US and US opposition to international financial assistance for Sudan under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act. The US has accused the military of using chemical weapons in 2024 in a determination finalized last year. The issue of the chemical weapon-related sanctions resurfaced hours after the sanctions announcement during the UN Security Council’s briefing on Sudan, where Boulos pointed to the measures and urged members to consider broadening the council’s existing Darfur arms embargo to cover all of Sudan or adopting a new nationwide embargo. Sudan’s UN ambassador Al-Harith Idriss rejected the allegations, saying a Sudanese national committee had cooperated with a visiting US team to collect soil samples from four locations identified by Washington and said no evidence had been presented to substantiate the claims. Responding to the remarks, Boulos said the US “has not maintained personnel on the ground to investigate these allegations.” The broader sanctions package announced by the US Treasury Department also named companies and executives accused of sustaining the military’s procurement network. Those designated include a Sudan-based defense procurement company controlled by state-owned Defence Industries System, as well as its managing director; an explosives manufacturer and its Indian national chief executive, accused of supplying the company with explosives and military equipment; and a Sudan-based public construction company accused of importing weapons. As for the RSF, the sanctions targeted three Panamanian nationals linked to a transnational recruitment network spanning Panama and Colombia that the US Treasury Department said facilitated the deployment of former Colombian soldiers and mercenaries to support RSF combat and technical operations. The measures are expected to increase pressure on procurement and supply networks by making it harder for the designated entities to conduct financial transactions, access banking services or enter into international commercial contracts. According to a former diplomatic source at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, the US is combining economic and political pressure with a renewed push for a humanitarian ceasefire. In the US Treasury Department’s statement, Washington called on the warring parties “to accept and implement an immediate, unconditional three-month humanitarian truce” and urged “external actors to cease all financial and military support” to both the military and the RSF. *** Fuel import financing crisis gives central bank new way into gold sector, sources say As the Sudanese pound plunged to a record low of around 5,500 to the dollar on the parallel market after rising fuel-import costs triggered a scramble for foreign currency, the Central Bank of Sudan responded by demanding gold. Under regulations the bank issued in mid-June, companies seeking to import petroleum products must first deposit 200 kg of gold as collateral. While authorities say the requirement is intended to strengthen oversight and ensure the financial capacity of importers, an industry source warned it could push smaller companies out of a strategic sector on which the economy heavily depends. But behind the measure lies a longer-running struggle over gold, one of Sudan’s most valuable economic assets. According to a former banker, the move is the latest chapter in a contest between the central bank and exporters backed by Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim over control of the country’s gold trade. Last year, attempts by the central bank to monopolize gold purchases and exports met resistance from both Ibrahim and exporters, who warned that such policies had failed in the past and risked disrupting production and trade. Although the confrontation culminated in the dismissal of the central bank governor at the time, the underlying struggle did not disappear. Now, with fuel imports becoming harder to finance and the pound under severe pressure, the central bank appears to have found a new way to draw more of Sudan’s gold into its hands, according to the former banker. The pound’s latest decline in the third week of June comes after it crossed the 5,000-per-dollar mark only days earlier, a currency trader operating on the black market told Mada Masr. A source in the central bank and a senior official in the import and export sector told Mada Masr that the sharp rise in global oil prices driven by security tensions in the Strait of Hormuz dramatically increased the amount of dollars needed to finance fuel shipments. With state reserves nearly exhausted and the central bank unable to meet demand, companies turned to the black market for dollars, pushing demand higher and sending the pound lower, the sources said. This came atop an already widening shortage of hard currency, reduced export earnings and the prolonged disruption of productive sectors caused by more than three years of war, a former official at the Finance Ministry told Mada Masr. At the same time, they added, demand for dollars has remained high as Sudan continues to rely heavily on imported fuel, food and other essential commodities. Amid “growing concern among officials over the widening gap between the country’s fuel requirements and the economy’s ability to generate the foreign exchange needed to finance imports,” as the central bank source put it, the central bank introduced a set of regulations on June 15 governing the import of petroleum products. Under the measures, companies seeking a no-objection certificate to complete import procedures must first deposit a guarantee of 200 kg of 21-carat gold at the Sudan Gold Refinery Company. According to the source, the requirement is intended to ensure the financial capacity of companies operating in the fuel sector. The measure, they argued, would strengthen regulators’ ability to monitor the flow of funds and commodities linked to this strategic sector. But the former banker said the mechanism is designed to bring more gold into official channels without requiring the central bank to directly buy it. They added that the idea is to connect the country’s biggest source of demand for dollars, fuel imports, with its biggest source of foreign currency, gold. The objective, according to the former banker, is to ensure that as much gold as possible passes through the state’s formal institutions rather than ending up in parallel markets or smuggling networks. Under the arrangement, state-owned or state-linked fuel companies could receive financing or special facilitations enabling them to purchase substantial quantities of gold from local producers and traders whenever financing is needed for a fuel shipment, the former banker explained. The gold would then not be treated as a commercial investment held by the companies themselves, they said, but rather as a strategic asset ultimately transferred to the central bank or routed through official channels under its supervision, where it could be used to bolster reserves or finance strategic imports. “Fuel companies would effectively serve as the state’s economic arms, drawing gold out of the domestic market, while the central bank would oversee the resulting assets,” they added. The arrangement would allow the central bank to exert greater influence over gold flows without directly purchasing or selling it, as it had tried, and failed, last year. Every kilogram acquired by a government-linked company effectively places a larger share of national gold production under state control, transforming gold from a commodity generating profits for private traders and exporters into a sovereign economic instrument used to manage the country’s foreign-exchange needs, the former banker said. Whether the strategy succeeds will depend largely on the state’s ability to compete with other buyers, according to the former banker. If government-linked companies can offer producers attractive prices and prompt payment, they could absorb a significant share of domestic production and channel it into the formal economy. If they fail to match market conditions, the former banker said, much of that gold is likely to continue flowing into parallel markets and informal trading networks, as happened during previous attempts. A source in the Gold Exporters Chamber who spoke to Mada Masr in October at the time of the feud between the finance minister and the central bank described the bank’s attempt to centralize gold trade at the time as “trying what has already been tried,” recalling how the former regime’s attempt to monopolize gold purchasing ended in economic disasters and rampant fiscal corruption within the sector. The central bank gold-collateral measure has triggered strong reservations among fuel-importing companies who argue the requirement would only create new obstacles at a time when importers are already facing unprecedented financing challenges. An executive at one such company estimated that a deposit of 200 kg of gold is worth around US$20 million, tying up capital that could otherwise be used to purchase fuel, pay shipping costs and cover insurance and transportation expenses. The executive warned that the measure could drive smaller and medium-sized firms out of the market, leaving a handful of larger companies monopolizing fuel imports. *** Subscribe to our Lens on Sudan newsletter here . The post Sudan Nashra: Continued buildup around Obeid as RSF looks to isolate city, drone campaign turns life into ‘nightmare’ | RSF pushes into Darfur’s Zaghawa tribal lands | Cairo arranges diplomatic push on Sudan, Khartoum arrives with same hardline demands | Fuel import financing crisis gives central bank new way into gold sector, sources say first appeared on Mada Masr .