In early April, Atar correspondent travelled to the Dar Mali market in Sudan’s River Nile State to document the scenes, rhythms, and conversations unfolding there. From the roundabout at Atbara’s inland port terminal, the correspondent watched lines of small vehicles queueing to ferry passengers eastward toward the Dar Mali mills market, with fares ranging between 10,000 and 12,000 Sudanese pounds per passenger. The route has become a vital transport artery for those heading out of Atbara.
Dar Mali’s mills market lies northeast of Atbara on the national highway linking the city to Port Sudan, roughly 20 kilometers from the inland port junction. Curiously, it sits at some distance from the village of Dar Mali itself — from which it takes its name — a settlement north of Atbara on the road to Abu Hamad. The market originally emerged near the Faculty of Agriculture at Nile Valley University in Dar Mali before later relocating to its current site.
According to information gathered by Atar correspondent, the market’s first incarnation at its present location dates back to late 2015. At the time, only a handful of shops existed alongside a small cluster of stone mills that could almost be counted on one hand. Expansion followed steadily thereafter. Today, locals distinguish between the “Old Market” and the “New Market.” The old section stretches from the market’s northern edge southward to the former locality administration building, now converted into a police station. The new section extends from that same building toward the Dar Mali gate facing the Port Sudan highway — a distance of roughly one kilometer.
In 2016, the planned market area formed a rectangle measuring approximately one kilometer by two kilometers. Today, however, Dar Mali sprawls across nearly eight square kilometers, stretching 3.3 kilometers wide and 2.4 kilometers long, while continuing to expand eastward and westward. Much of this territory is occupied by stone-grinding sites where gold-bearing rock is processed, employing hundreds of young laborers.
Dar Mali Gold mills' Market, March 2015.
Source: Google Earth Pro.
The market is encircled by earthen embankments known locally as the “trench,” constructed to funnel the movement of people and vehicles through the main gate near the old locality building. From the gate, a long unpaved artery cuts through the market for roughly 2.4 kilometers, dividing it into eastern and western sectors — a geographic shorthand by which residents orient themselves.
Dar Mali Gold mills' Market, June 2023.
Source: Google Earth Pro.
Dar Mali’s first phase of growth unfolded gradually between 2016 and 2024 through the organic construction of shops and the steady addition of milling sites. The most recent wave of expansion, however, occurred at striking speed over the course of months between 2024 and 2025. Traders say the turning point came when the Barbar locality administration distributed new plots in 2024. Yet large-scale construction only accelerated toward the end of 2025, when fresh shops appeared and new mills entered service in rapid succession, giving the market its current form.
Two satellite images showing the expansion of the Dar Mali Gold Mills' market between July 2024 (Left) and July 2025 (Right).
Source: Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.
A clear image of the Dar Mali Gold Mills' market, March 2025.
Source: Esri | World Imagery Wayback.
Land Worth Its Weight in Gold
The market has become far more than a gold market. It is now a sprawling industrial and commercial city built around the movement of ore, labour and money.
The supply of land plots available for allocation in Dar Mali is nearing exhaustion. Traders believe that once all plots in the “new market” have been distributed, authorities will open further expansion zones either east or west of the existing market. They expect initial plot allocations there to cost between five and ten million Sudanese pounds before prices inevitably rise alongside development and speculative brokerage.
Land within Dar Mali falls under the jurisdiction of the Barbar locality administration, which maintains an office inside the market. The administration issues permits for milling sites, shop plots, fuel allocations, and other municipal affairs. Market operators told Atar that milling plots typically range between 1,000 and 2,000 square meters, and that official allocation prices are initially manageable. Yet the involvement of what traders describe as “government intermediaries” dramatically inflates costs, with some plots reportedly resold for as much as 50 million pounds.
Prices vary sharply depending on proximity to the market’s main road. The farther a plot lies from the central thoroughfare, the cheaper it becomes. Traders and workers interviewed by Atar estimated that permits for shops facing the main road can cost around 25 million pounds, though the true baseline price remains opaque because of middlemen operating in the allocation process.
Some permit holders construct shops only to rent them out, with monthly rents ranging between 1.5 and 2 million pounds. Most businesses not directly tied to gold trading are built from inexpensive materials such as corrugated zinc sheets and are tucked away in side alleys where rents are significantly lower than those along the main commercial strip.
The Barbar locality administration collects various municipal fees from businesses, including sanitation and waste charges, while the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company levies transit fees of 25,000 pounds per sack of ore entering the market.
Photo: Atar correspondent.
Today, Dar Mali — or “Dar Mali Mills,” as it is commonly known — has evolved into far more than a gold market. Nearly every conceivable service now exists there: grocery shops, bakeries, clothing stores, tailors, laundries, restaurants, cafés, football-viewing cafés, barber shops, pharmacies, mosques, mobile-phone vendors, itinerant hawkers, kiosks, bathhouses, and stalls selling personal necessities. Outside the market gate stand fuel stations, groceries, and restaurants charging prices noticeably higher than those in Atbara itself.
These businesses cater to the enormous human traffic flowing through the market: ore truck drivers, laborers, merchants, administrators, police officers, and security personnel. Yet the overwhelming majority are workers engaged in the many stages of the gold economy — from stone milling and mixing operations to refining workshops and laboratories — beginning with the arrival of truckloads of ore sacks unloaded by teams of labourers waiting at the gate.
A Commercial and Industrial Zone
A cylindrical mixer manufacturing workshop in Dar Mali Gold Mills' market
Photo: Atar correspondent.
Dar Mali’s relationship to gold extends beyond trade into manufacturing itself. Metal workshops produce the modern cylindrical mixers used to process finely milled ore from ball mills, making the market not merely commercial but industrial in character.
The “ball mill” — known locally as Bourhill — is a cylindrical metal grinder laid horizontally on the ground or mounted on a concrete platform. Inside it, metal balls rotate and collide with rock, crushing it into an ultra-fine powder. Depending on specifications, these machines can cost between the equivalent of $70,000 and $90,000 on Sudan’s local market. Traders say ball mills first entered widespread use in Sudan around 2021 and dramatically improved gold recovery rates.
Ball mills g workshop in Dar Mali Gold Mills' market.
Photo: Atar correspondent.
The market also hosts traditional water mills, which process ore with mercury and recover only around 30 percent the gold embedded in the rock. The remaining 70 percent settles into waste tailings known as karta — residue still rich in gold and now feeding an entire secondary industry specialized in extracting precious metals from milling waste.
Traditional water mills in Dar Mali.
Photo: Atar correspondent.
Officially, artisanal miners are prohibited from processing waste tailings because of the dangers posed by sodium cyanide, a highly toxic substance hazardous to both people and the environment. Yet processing is permitted in a designated zone called al-Durwa, located roughly 3.5 kilometres northeast of the market, where miners lease settling ponds for tailings treatment.
To this day, ball mills are prohibited outside Dar Mali’s boundaries. Hundreds now operate inside the market itself. Their concentration within a tightly controlled zone enables the state, through taxation and regulation, to maintain a firm grip over the revenues generated by ball-mill-based mining.
The Journey of Gold
Photo: Atar correspondent.
The gold cycle begins with tansib — prospecting and estimation — the process by which miners assess the gold content of ore carried in sacks. In the most traditional method, miners grind small rock samples in a metal pan, wash them carefully, and swirl the sediment until a faint ribbon of golden dust appears. Based on the amount visible — and on instinct as much as calculation — the miner decides whether the stone is worth transporting to Dar Mali.
Within the market, investors operating under commercial trade names own the ball mills, renting them out either by the hour or by the sack. Milling one sack costs roughly 15,000 pounds, while mixer processing costs around 20,000 pounds. Ore owners must also supply key processing materials themselves, including activated carbon and thiourea. A 25-kilogram sack of activated carbon costs no less than 700,000 pounds, while a similar quantity of thiourea reaches approximately 825,000 pounds.
Once crushed in the ball mill, the powdered ore is transferred into large cylindrical mixers where it is combined with water, thiourea, cement, and activated carbon. Carbon’s physical properties enable it to attract metals — especially gold — while thiourea breaks down the ore matrix and cement helps separate soil from the carbon-rich slurry at the base of the mixer.
The mixing process runs between eight and ten hours before the mixture is left to settle. The upper layers — a highly fluid sludge of water, thiourea, and cement — are drained into open settling ponds. Once dried, this residue becomes known as bourmill karta. Workers in Dar Mali believe ball mills recover roughly twice as much gold as water mills, extracting as much as 80 percent of the gold contained in ore and leaving behind only around 20 percent in the tailings. Even so, miners continue trying to recover this remaining fraction.
After the tailings are removed, a dense black paste remains inside the mixer — a compound of carbon, gold, impurities, and other metals. This material is dried and transferred into furnaces intense heat melts the metallic crystals inside. The process produces a hardened slag-like mass called khabath, which is then broken apart to reveal raw golden metallic clusters requiring further purification.
Specialised workshops throughout Dar Mali refine material through thermal smelting combined with chemicals such as borax and sulphuric acid. Small gas- or coal-powered furnaces generate temperatures sufficient to separate impurities from the gold.
Some of the market’s more advanced laboratories now use electrically powered laser-smelting systems to refine gold. Yet these systems fail when alloys contain non-crystalline metals such as iron, which require higher temperatures. Technicians therefore test ingots with small magnets before processing to detect excessive iron or copper content. Laser smelting is primarily used to homogenize gold pieces containing mixed carat grades.
Assaying gold purity marks the first fully commercial stage of the process. Across Dar Mali, numerous laboratories and shops specialize in this procedure, locally known as shishna. Gold purity is measured in carats, with 24-carat gold — Fine Gold 999.9 — representing 99.99 percent purity.
Before testing, technicians manually check for excessive iron content using small magnets. If contamination is too high, the owner must return to the smelting stage for further purification. When mixed carat levels prevent accurate assessment, the ingot may be sent back for laser remelting. As a result, refining and assaying often involve multiple rounds between workshops of differing specializations.
Modern testing equipment has become widespread in Dar Mali, including German-made Fischer X-ray fluorescence devices capable of determining gold purity within minutes and identifying additional metallic elements present in an ingot. Atar correspondent observed a Fischer Goldscope SD 515 operating inside one local assay shop.
Although such devices can analyze gold without drilling or filing samples, assay laboratories in Dar Mali still file down small portions of ingots for testing — charging around 20,000 pounds for analyzing bars worth millions.
Gold leaving Dar Mali is officially permitted to move only toward Atbara and then onward to Port Sudan for export. Any other route is treated by mining police as smuggling.
After testing, assay shops issue owners with a card known as a shishna card, recording the ingot’s weight, sample weight, and purity grade. This becomes the first formal document associated with the gold inside the market. The owner must then proceed to the offices of the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company beside Dar Mali’s gate. There, officials complete a free form containing the owner’s details and specifications of the gold piece.
This document constitutes the first official government certification linked to the mined gold and legally permits its holder to transport the metal. Inside Dar Mali, gold buying and selling occurs freely. But once beyond the market gate, carrying gold without official documentation is treated by authorities as smuggling.
The permit remains valid for only three days and must then be renewed in Atbara if the gold remains unsold — a policy that appears designed to discourage hoarding and encourage constant circulation.
When gold changes hands, the buyer retains a stamped copy confirming the transaction and uses it to obtain a new permit in their own name. The seller returns the original stamped form to the Mineral Resources Company as a “returned form.” Traders who fail to submit these forms can be barred from receiving new permits, effectively excluding them from the market. Yet stories circulate within Dar Mali of traders forging sales stamps in order to submit fake return forms while secretly retaining the gold itself.
Although the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company has no direct purchasing window inside Dar Mali, its offices tightly regulate the routes through which mined gold moves. Through transport permits, the company tracks where gold is carried and by whom. Officially, gold leaving Dar Mali may move only toward Atbara, then onward to Port Sudan for export. Any other route is treated by mining police as smuggling.
A Market Structured by Class
Some traders survive by collecting the tiny fractions left behind in gold transactions. Over a single day, those fragments can accumulate into a gram or more.
Within Dar Mali’s boundaries, gold circulates in what is effectively a free commercial zone. Transactions often occur without proof of ownership, and some goldsmiths even lend one another gold instead of Sudanese currency.
A trader’s standing in Dar Mali is measured either by the amount of gold they control or by the volume they can aggregate for larger merchants. Gold traders and goldsmiths generally fall into three broad strata.
At the bottom are small traders and brokers with little capital, able to finance only a few grams at a time. They survive by brokering deals between owners of tiny quantities and larger merchants.
The middle tier contains multiple sub-levels, ranging from traders capable of purchasing one or two grams to those locally known as “ceiling holders” — merchants operating several bank accounts to circumvent transfer limits and capable of purchasing as much as 200 grams per day. Higher still are those able to acquire more than a kilogram daily. What unites this tier is its dependence on networks of smaller brokers and intermediaries.
At the top are the major goldsmiths linked directly to exporters in Port Sudan — operators with substantial capital or privileged access to financing, enabling them to consolidate vast quantities of gold scattered throughout the market.
Goldsmiths in Dar Mali say the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company’s purchasing office in Atbara often offers slightly higher prices than the market itself. Yet reassessment of gold purity there can prove risky. If company evaluators downgrade the purity below what local assay shops certified, traders frequently withdraw and return to sell within Dar Mali instead.
Because of the dense web connecting brokers, traders, and exporters — and because individuals often perform multiple roles simultaneously — it is difficult to determine from a distance whether someone is truly a merchant, a broker, or merely an agent for larger financiers. Some market participants estimate that half the goldsmiths in Dar Mali possess no working capital of their own and instead operate effectively as representatives of exporters in Port Sudan.
Profits become significant at volumes exceeding half a kilogram. The larger the quantity of gold controlled, the greater the trader’s leverage in price negotiations. If one gram sells for 500,000 pounds on a given day, a trader handling substantial quantities may push the price to 501,000 or 502,000 pounds per gram. Top-tier traders can sometimes earn the equivalent of ten grams of profit on transactions involving between 1.5 and 2 kilograms of gold.
But how do most people in Dar Mali make money from gold?
A small trader buying scattered fragments — 1.06 grams from one seller, 4.09 from another, perhaps a 20.2-gram ingot from someone else — profits from the fractional surplus created by these irregular weights. Over a single day, those fractions can accumulate into a gram or more.
Assay shop owners collect residual gold dust left behind in testing devices after drilling or filing ingots. Smelting furnace operators keep slag containing tiny traces of gold. Owners of ball-mill tailings, mixers, and water mills all recover residual particles from the waste generated by processing. There is gold dust everywhere in Dar Mali.
As for the original prospectors — the men who carved rock from the deserts of northern and eastern Sudan and journeyed across vast distances toward Dar Mali — some may recognize the gold dust they unknowingly leave behind in the market, while others lack the means to reclaim it. In either case, much of Dar Mali survives on gold dust clinging to pale faces and vigilant eyes.
Vigilant Eyes, Guarded Faces
Faces appear wary, and eyes remain alert despite visible exhaustion. Goldsmiths and shop owners carry pistols in their pockets and behind their counters.
Heavy security defines Dar Mali’s perimeter, especially near the trench and the main gate, where buildings belonging to the Mining Security Police stand watch. Inside the market, the former Sudanese Mineral Resources Company building has itself become a police station receiving reports on illegal activities linked to the market.
Police handle daily reports of theft, drug trafficking, alcohol sales, stabbings, and violent assaults. They monitor attempts to smuggle prohibited materials such as sodium cyanide used in processing mill tailings and work around the clock to intercept undocumented gold leaving the market. As a result, anyone inside or around Dar Mali is subject to searches by security forces.
The market is ethnically diverse. Sudanese from across the country mix in its alleys and streets, though many workers originate from western Sudan and the southern border regions. Atar’s correspondent also observed striking numbers of adolescents and underage boys working inside the market. Women and children are officially prohibited from circulating through the market’s inner alleys, though children remain visible along peripheral streets.
Market estimates suggest that tens of kilograms of gold receive official transport permits every single day. Yet despite this, no visible handheld or fixed metal detectors guard the entrances — a remarkable omission for a market handling Sudan’s most valuable commodity.
The atmosphere inside Dar Mali is charged with tension, shaped above all by the immense quantities of gold circulating through it. Faces appear wary; eyes remain alert despite visible exhaustion. Goldsmiths and shop owners carry pistols in their pockets and behind their counters.
One trader explained that the market’s defining events are crimes: thefts, armed robberies, stabbings, and murders. Many occur during moments when vigilance lapses — during public disputes, or late at night when movement slows and eyelids grow heavy. Another trader recounted notorious unsolved crimes attributed to organized gangs and armed robberies. On one occasion, he said, market workers awoke to discover a corpse dumped inside one of the residue settling ponds.
Many workers return nightly to Atbara rather than sleep inside the market. Yet an unknown number live permanently within it. Shopkeepers barricade themselves behind locked doors or sleep inside wire cages outside their stalls. Laborers rent beds in open-air sleeping areas near the mills. As for itinerant vendors and hawkers with neither shops nor beds, no one seems entirely certain how their nights pass.
