A genocidal militia in Sudan controls a key ingredient in Coke and Pepsi

By Simon Marks

For two years, Hisham Salih Yagoub has fielded calls from frantic drivers across wartorn Sudan asking him to pay thousands of dollars to the genocidal paramilitary group that has torn the country apart – extortion to get his truckloads of gum arabic to the port.

After it’s sorted in warehouses in Port Sudan, Yagoub’s gum arabic is sent to clients in Europe and the US. Gum arabic, a sticky tree sap, is an essential ingredient in everything from Coca-Cola to Danone yogurt to M&Ms. Sudan produces 70 per cent of the world’s supply – and Yagoub’s company, Afritec, is one of the biggest suppliers.

“You have to pay a lot of money to the janjaweed,” Yagoub said of the Rapid Support Forces militia, which the US in January accused of committing genocide in a civil war that’s displaced 12 million people and killed at least 150,000. He says he routinely pays them around $2,500 per truck.

Gum arabic acts as an organic emulsifier in consumer goods around the world — in candy, medicine, soda and cosmetics. It grows across Africa — from Senegal to Kenya — but the millions of acacia trees that grow in a sandy 2,00,000 square mile belt across southern Sudan that is largely controlled by the RSF is the heart of production.

Now, two years into the war that’s sparked the globe’s biggest humanitarian crisis, the supply chain in Sudan is completely untraceable — with no way to tell whether household brand names contain products that are funding war criminals, according to trade data and interviews with more than a dozen traders, officials, executives and other experts.

“If gum arabic disappeared, Coca-Cola's formula would no longer work. It would no longer be Coca-Cola,” said Maysara Elawad , a commercial advisor for the Albakry Factory for Packing & Preparing Gum Arabic, which exports around 4,000 tons of gum annually to companies in Europe and the US. “There’s no way to trace it at this point.”

Coca-Cola declined to comment. Nestle said it’s “committed to sourcing all our commodities in a responsible way, and in line with applicable regulatory requirements.” Mars, which makes M&Ms, said it doesn’t tolerate bribery or corruption and is “actively engaging with our suppliers regarding the deeply concerning situation in Sudan and we remain prepared to take any appropriate action if we find any violation of our policies.” PepsiCo and Danone didn’t respond to detailed lists of questions.

Sudanese gum arabic trade is rife with extortion.

Throughout the war, the gum arabic that stops the sugar in Coke from falling to the bottom of the can has continued to flow out of the Darfur and Kordofan regions that the RSF largely control, and where most of the acacia trees that produce it are grown by smallholder farmers or cooperatives.

“There is a real question mark now over the sourcing: How is it sourced? Did the sourcing of gum arabic involve violence and abuse of communities and abuse of farmers?” said Tedd George, a consultant at the Kleos Advisory, a consultancy specialising in commodities in African markets. “The answer is probably yes.”

A spokesman for the RSF denied that its fighters loot or extort gum arabic suppliers. “The owners of Sudanese gum arabic companies have political, social and economic interests with the army and the Islamist movement. It is natural for them to say this,” Nizar Ahmed said. "We are ready to provide all possible facilities for companies, businessmen and investors to enter production areas and purchase the product."

The gum arabic that Afritec buys from farmers in Kordofan in bushels and sacks of pink crystallized sap goes mainly to France-based Nexira, which is responsible for 40% of the world’s total processed gum. Nexira’s product winds up in yogurt manufactured by Danone in Egypt, bottles of Coke in India and Pepsi in Pakistan, according to a Bloomberg analysis of trade data compiled by Sayari, a risk management and supply chain analysis data provider. The company and peers including US-based Ingredion, Ireland’s Kerry Group and France-based Alland & Robert dominate the industry.

Nexira didn’t respond to a detailed list of questions, including specific queries about Yagoub’s extortion payments to the RSF. The company told Reuters earlier this month that it had cut imports from Sudan due to the war and taken measures to vary its sourcing to include ten countries in order to reduce supply chain risks.

Kerry Group didn’t respond to a request for comment. Ingredion didn’t respond to a request for comment but told Reuters earlier this month that it had also diversified its import base to include countries such as Cameroon.

All four companies, along with Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nivea, Danone and Mars express commitments to ethical supply chains on their websites, as well as expectations that their suppliers also adhere to those values.

The Association for International Promotion of Gums (AIPG), a trade lobby representing major processors, and its members “unequivocally condemn any form of smuggling of acacia gum,” according to a statement on its website updated on March 11.

“Despite the challenges of an unstable environment, traceability and the legitimacy of exports remain ensured, notably thanks to the relocation of activities to safe areas such as Port Sudan and the establishment of secure corridors,” the group said. “While the conflict in Sudan has led to increased production and exports from other countries in the Gum Belt, these nations have long been producers of acacia gum and continue to supply the global market.”

The RSF has also burned fields, killed farmers and looted thousands of tons from warehouses in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum — including 3,000 metric tons from Afritec, according to Yagoub — before smuggling it across borders into Chad, Libya or Egypt, inevitably making its way into the global supply chain, according to executives at six gum arabic trading companies in Sudan. In May 2023, RSF fighters raided farms in Kordofan, burning plantations and looting 550 metric tons of gum arabic, according to a judicial complaint filed by Mohammed El Munzir, a gum producer, on March 5 in a court in Merowe.

More than 30,000 tons of gum arabic has been looted since the war started, according to Bashir al-Kinani, a member of the Sudan Chamber of Commerce and the Sudan Gum Arabic Association.

“European companies buy looted Sudanese gum smuggled outside of the country,” Albakry’s Elawad said.

Ahmat Mussa, a Chad-based trader and CEO of Al-Khikhwane Co Ltd, said Sudanese gum had flooded the Chadian market over the past year. He said there was no way of telling if it had been sourced from communities, traders or companies who had been extorted or had their rights abused by RSF soldiers.

“It’s mixed with Chadian gum when it enters the country,” he said, adding that some leaves the country via Cameroon.

As Sudan's exports have fallen, neighbours have ramped up

Sudan’s army has also introduced loading costs, export duties, general taxes and forestry fees that amount to roughly $155 per 100kg of gum arabic being sent out of Port Sudan, according to documents shared by Elawad. That additional $1,550 per metric ton helps fund an army led by a man — Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan — who has also been sanctioned by the US for his role in the indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure, attacks on schools, markets and hospitals, and extrajudicial executions. An army spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment on the levies. In January, the army said it “rejects and condemns the sanctions.”

That means that however gum arabic leaves Sudan, it’s likely to be enriching actors connected to war crimes.

“AIPG does not see any evidence of links between acacia gum supply chain and the competing forces,” the gum trade group said. “In particular, there is no reason to assume that there might be any financial links between the AIPG members and the political forces, armies and militias involved in the current situation. This product category is of neglectable financial interest to the conflicting parties.”

Bedrock of the food industry

Gum arabic has been used for millennia: as an adhesive in Stone Age Africa, in paint by Neolithic Chinese scribes, to embalm the mummies of Egyptian Pharaohs and to harden the lipstick used by Queen Elizabeth I and Cleopatra. The Greeks used it to treat ulcers; the Old Masters — including Rembrandt — to bind their paints.

In recent decades, it’s become so important to global food companies that they successfully lobbied the Clinton administration to carve gum arabic out of a sweeping sanctions regime imposed on Sudan in 1997 for sponsoring terrorism and providing refuge to Osama bin Laden. Companies including Cargill have developed synthetic alternatives, but they haven’t replaced natural gum arabic, which continues to flow out of Sudan amid the current atrocities — either from Port Sudan or smuggled through neighboring countries.

Major gum arabic processors and buyers are members of Sedex, which is a platform and data-driven tool “that businesses use to help them assess and manage ethical and sustainability risks within their supply chains,” according to a Sedex spokesperson. But suppliers in Sudan said buying gum arabic that meet ethical standards has become near impossible since the war began.

Roughly 70% of the 72,000 metric tons of gum arabic the European Union imported from around the world in 2024 came from Sudan. Although there was a slight 3% dip in Sudan’s exports to the EU over that period, it was filled by a nearly identical increase in exports from neighboring Egypt, a country that traditionally ships very little. Chad has also seen exports rise.

“We don’t even care if it’s been smuggled,” said Mussa, the Chadian trader. “The important thing is that it is properly weighed, and you receive your money.”

On Nexira’s website, scientists dressed in white overalls study ways to bring consumers new sensory experiences by using locust bean gum texturizers in ice cream, plant-based drinks and spreadable cheeses at its headquarters in Rouen. The company imported at least 149 shipments totaling 3,679 metric tons of gum arabic from Sudan since the war broke out last April, according to a Bloomberg analysis of trade data compiled by Sayari.

More than 15% of those exports came from Afritec – the company that Yagoub runs, and which has been paying extortion fees to the RSF. Afritec has exported at least 599 metric tons of gum arabic to Nexira since the war started, Sayari data show. On its website, Nexira says it’s a member of Sedex and "must safeguard human rights in the communities that produce the basic material."

The French company has sold at least 32 metric tons of gum arabic to Coca-Cola in Pakistan and India during the course of the war as well as 503 metric tons of the product to Pepsi in India and Pakistan. It also sold 39 metric tons to Danone in Egypt and Brazil.

Yagoub, the Afritec chairman, said the price of gum arabic had risen to around $4,000 a metric ton today due to higher transport costs and the RSF’s extortion, from $1,200 before the war.

“They stop the trucks and you have to pay for the trucks to move,” he said. “They either steal some of it or they make you pay.”

Since Sudan’s civil war began, Alland & Robert, another top French processor, has sold to Coca-Cola, Nestle and Farbest Brands, a US company that sells gum arabic to major American brands. The French company bought at least 1,161 metric tons of gum arabic from companies in Chad and 484 metric tons from companies in Sudan in 2024. Farbest didn't respond to a request for comment.

“We condemn any form of smuggling, human rights violation, or illegal practice in the gum acacia industry,” Alland & Robert said in response to questions from Bloomberg, pointing to its membership in Sedex and other sustainable and ethical supply chain pledges including “We Use Wild” by the NGO Traffic, Ecovadis, the United Nations Global Compact and “Fair For Life,” meaning it adheres to international standards for fair trade and responsible supply chains.

In September 2023, Unity Arabic Gum Company CEO Mohammed Hussein Sorge said one of his drivers was en route to Port Sudan via Para village just north of the city of El-Obeid. At a checkpoint on the road running north, RSF soldiers arrested the driver at gunpoint.

“They took the truck and the gum arabic and I paid $10,000 to release him,” he said. “As for my company, it has been robbed many times since the beginning of the war in 2023.”

Sorge said he shuttered his company in December 2023 because of the high extortion costs and security risks for his drivers. “If you carry gum arabic or sesame or any good and you’re going to Port Sudan, the RSF may kill you or ask you to pay fees to them,” he said in an interview from Cairo, where he has lived since the outbreak of war.

Late last year, inside a warehouse in Port Sudan where women toiled in sweltering temperatures, Mustafa Abdulraman, a manager at Nat Crops for Import and Export, had recently delivered 220 metric tons of gum arabic to Ireland-based Kerry Group.

“The market is there,” he said, combing his hand through a pile of evenly sized pink chunks of dried gum. “But nobody is really asking any questions about how it leaves the country.”