Sudan to reopen gold mines once linked to warlord’s family March 16, 2021 Sudan is moving forward with plans to reopen a network of mines that at one stage produced a third of the nation’s gold and which were until last year linked to the family of the country’s most powerful militia leader. The Mining Ministry said on Monday it had sent a team from the General Authority for Geological Research to determine how soon the North Darfur mines can resume production. The assets were handed over to Sudan’s government in May 2020 after being in Al Gunade’s hands for about for years. Al Gunade was a construction and trading firm owned by relatives of militia chief Mohamed Hamdan, who joined the 2019 coup against veteran dictator Omar al-Bashir.