In a different WhatsApp conversation with the same buyer, reviewed by Reuters, a different trader said that trucks carrying gum arabic had crossed the Sudanese border into South Sudan and Egypt.
In all instances, the gum traders could not provide a Sedex certification, the buyer said, adding he declined the offers for fear the gum came from RSF-affiliated networks.
Before the Sudanese civil war, the raw gum would be sorted in Khartoum and then trucked to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, to be shipped via the Suez Canal around the world.
Since late last year, however, RSF-affiliated gum Arabic started to appear on sale at two informal markets on the border between the Sudanese province of West Kordofan and South Sudan, according to a buyer based in an RSF-controlled area, who declined to be named due to safety concerns.
The buyer, a major trader in the West Kordofan area, said traders collect gum from Sudanese land owners and sell them to South Sudanese traders in these markets for US dollars. All of this happens with RSF protection, which the traders pay for, the buyer added.
Abdallah Mohamed, a producer who owns acacia groves in West Kordofan, also said the RSF takes a fee from the traders for protection. The paramilitary group has diversified its interests into gold, livestock, agriculture and banking.
South Sudan information minister Michael Makuei, who is also the government's spokesperson, said transport of gum through South Sudan was not the government's responsibility. Calls and messages to Joseph Moum Majak, the minister of trade and industry for South Sudan, went unanswered.
The RSF also takes the product to the Central African Republic through the border town of Um Dafoog, the buyer said, adding some goes to Chad. A wholesale buyer, based outside Sudan, told Reuters the gum was now being exported through Mombasa in Kenya and South Sudan's capital Juba.
Arabic gum of illicit origin has also appeared on sale online. Isam Siddig, a Sudanese gum processor who is now a refugee in Britain, said his warehouses in Khartoum had been raided by the RSF after he fled in April 2023 with three suitcases of gum in tow.
A year later, his gum products appeared on sale, still in his company's branded packaging, in an online Facebook group according to a screenshot shared with Reuters.
**Reuters**