Talk:Radom

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Radom is the cannabis growing area of Radom locality, in South Darfur State, Sudan: the growing that the study of 1994 describes round the town of Radom, and the farms, campaigns and reports from 2012 to 2026. Sudan's history of cannabis, its law and its trade are treated on the country page.

Data verification

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Discussion

Why Radom is a growing area

Mohamed, Karim and Mohamed (1998, pp. 115–118) describe hashish growing round the town of El-Radom from field visits of 1994 and 1995: its start in the 1940s at El-Murraya, its spread to Radom town in the 1960s, and 182 farms in 32 places in 1994.
Radio Dabanga (14 September 2012, in Arabic) quotes Colonel Salah Sinada of the General Administration for Combating Drugs: the Radom area of South Darfur ranks first in Sudan in the production of bango. Radio Dabanga (10 July 2016) reports the same office saying that most of the cannabis in Sudan is grown in El Radoom locality, and the Africa Organised Crime Index (2025) says the same.
Police and press reports from 2014 to 2021 describe campaigns against farms in Radom locality and its park: Radio Dabanga (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021) and Sudan Tribune (2015, 2021).
Darfur24 (28 January 2025, in Arabic) and the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (March 2026) report growing in Radom after the war began in April 2023.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy drawn on Radom locality as OpenStreetMap maps it (relation 20170219, "Al Radoum", administrative level 6), not on accession points. Radom locality is the unit the sources name: "El Radoom locality" in the police statements of 2014 to 2017 and in the Organised Crime Index.
The sources also speak of the Radom park or reserve. UNESCO gives the biosphere reserve 1,250,000 hectares (12,500 km²); the locality is larger, so the line takes in the whole park and the villages round Radom town that the study of 1994 names.
The map line leaves out ground above 4,000 m and land that ESA WorldCover 2021 maps as bare or sparse vegetation, permanent snow and ice, or open water, at its outer edge only. At Radom the edge runs through savanna woodland, so nothing is cut: the line is the locality's, about 25,900 km².
The infobox point (9.83, 24.85) is the town of Radom.
The line includes the Kafia Kingi enclave, which the locality administers. South Sudan claims the enclave (Radio Tamazuj, 2 October 2026); the article states the dispute in one sentence and places the enclave in Sudan only as its administering state.

Growing status

The status is Active: Darfur24 (2025) and the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (2026) report growing in Radom after 2023, and police reports describe farms there every year from 2014 to 2018 and in 2021. No source says that growing has stopped.

Other places named

Songo (Sungu, Sengo, سنقو). Sudan Tribune (19 December 2015) names the Songo and Radom areas as the main source of drug production in Sudan, and in the same article writes that South Darfur grows hashish in three main areas, Songo, Radom and the east of Jebel Marra. No other source read names Jebel Marra as a place where cannabis is grown, so it is not part of this page.
Kafia Kingi, Kafan Debbi and Dafak. Kafan Debbi is given as the Arabic source spells it (كفن دبي); Thomas (2010) lists a place he spells Kafindebei among the homes of the Binga, and whether the two are one place is not stated. Dafak is named only for the police sweep of 2021.
Bahar el Arab locality, in East Darfur, on the South Sudan line. Radio Dabanga (13 December 2015) wrote that it and El Radoom locality, "both bordering South Sudan, are the largest areas known for the cultivation and trade of cannabis". No other source names it as a growing place, so it is not part of this page or its border.
Bahr al-Ghazal and the Central African Republic. The study of 1994 found growing by people of the El-Radom area in the northern part of Bahr El-Gazal State and across the border in the Central African Republic. The border stops at the Sudanese line.

The Kafia Kingi enclave

Radio Tamazuj (2 October 2026): "South Sudan claims Kafia Kingi as part of Raja County in Western Bahr el-Ghazal State, while Sudan administers the area as part of South Darfur State."
Thomas (2010, pp. 6–7) dates the transfer of the enclave from Bahr al-Ghazal to Darfur to 1960 and its placing under Radom locality to 2009. The International Crisis Group (Sudan: Defining the North-South Border, Africa Briefing 75, 2 September 2010) says "in the 1960s", "seemingly for administrative purposes". The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement refers to the border as it stood on 1 January 1956.
Thomas gives the enclave's area as about 12,500 km² and, in another sentence on the same page, as 25,000 km²; the article gives neither.

Source discrepancies

The area under cannabis. The figures are given by different officials, in different units, and none says how it was measured:
- 34,000 km², "the size of Portugal" (Colonel Salah Sinada, 2012; repeated by Radio Dabanga in 2016 and 2019 and by Sudan Tribune in 2015). The Arabic text has "34 الف كلم" (34,000 km) without "square".
- "at least 30,000 square kilometres" (the General Office for Combating Drugs, quoted by Radio Dabanga, September and November 2017).
- "13,600 kilometres of cannabis farms" (Radio Dabanga, 26 September 2017; the Arabic version has (13) ألف و(600) كيلو متر).
- about 20,000 feddans in 2022 (a police officer quoted by Darfur24, 2025); "around 20,000 feddans, equivalent to 20,760 acres" (the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, 2026, citing unnamed reports); "around 20,000 acres" (Geeska, 2026, citing South Darfur police in 2022).
- about 100 hectares on 182 farms in 1994 (Mohamed, Karim and Mohamed 1998).
The article gives the 1994, 2012 and 2022 figures, each with who gave it.
The park. UNESCO's biosphere reserve page gives the nomination year as 1979 and 1,250,000 ha. Sudan's tentative-list entry (2021) says national park in 1980 and biosphere reserve in 1982, and 1,250,970 ha. The Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker calls the park "a UNESCO World Heritage Site"; UNESCO lists it as a biosphere reserve and on Sudan's tentative list, not as a World Heritage Site, so the article does not repeat that.
El-Murraya. Thomas (2010, p. 98) places al-Muraya "north of Radom"; the study of 1994 (Table 1, p. 117) gives El-Murraya as 20 km east of El-Radom town. The article follows the study.
The study's dates. Its abstract says September 1994; its method section says a first visit in April and May 1994 and a second in September 1995. The article says 1994 and 1995.
The effect of the war. Darfur24 (2025) and the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (2026) report that growing in Radom doubled after 2023; the Africa Organised Crime Index (2025) writes that the war reduced the cannabis trade and use in Sudan. The article gives both.

Sources

Mohamed, Karim and Mohamed (1998), Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal 4(1), pp. 114–121, was read in the WHO PDF, which is a scan with no text layer; it was read page by page. The first author is described as a police officer of the forensic laboratory in Khartoum. Its figures for 1994 are the authors' estimates from the farms they reached and those they did not.
Thomas (2010), The Kafia Kingi Enclave (Rift Valley Institute), was read in the publisher's PDF. On pp. 97–98 it summarises the 1998 study and a report in Arabic of the late 1990s on the drug trade in the Radom Biosphere Reserve, which Thomas saw only in extracts; that report was not found.
Radio Dabanga and Sudan Tribune are cited for what police and officials said and for single campaigns. The Arabic articles were read in Arabic.
Darfur24 (28 January 2025) rests on an unnamed officer of the South Darfur drug police and a community leader in Radom under a pseudonym; the article attributes its claims to them.
The Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker (March 2026) names no author; it rests partly on interviews made in October 2025, and it says itself that the research available does not establish that the RSF directs the drug trade as formal policy.
UNESCO: the Man and the Biosphere page for Radom and Sudan's tentative-list entry 6518, both read 22 October 2026.

Not used

A podcast estimate, relayed by Darfur24 (9 September 2026), that Radom produces about 90 per cent of Darfur's bango.
Geeska (24 March 2026) on named RSF commanders said to finance or oversee farms: claims about named people from one unnamed official.
Seller lines and their place names.

Open questions

Where in the locality the farms of 2012–2022 lay: the reports name the locality, the park, Songo and the south of Radom, and none maps the fields.
The report in Arabic of the late 1990s on the drug trade in the Radom Biosphere Reserve, known only from Thomas (2010).
F. W. Andrews, The Flowering Plants of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1950–1956), may record herbarium sheets from the area; it was not reached.