Airstrikes Kill at Least 72 Sudanese Gold Miners Near Egypt

At least 72 artisanal gold miners were killed when warplanes struck a remote mining site in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border over the weekend, according to the Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers. The October 10 attack occurred in the North Wadi area of Jabal al-Uqaydat, in River Nile State, hundreds of miles from the front lines of Sudan's civil war. Rights monitors blamed the Egyptian military, which had not publicly commented on the incident.

Emergency Lawyers said the strike killed dozens of civilian workers at an open-air mine. Two eyewitnesses interviewed by The New York Times estimated that at least 65 people had died and another 120 or more were wounded. Images circulated by local rights groups showed bodies wrapped in funeral coverings and debris scattered around the site, although Reuters said it could not independently verify the footage.

Saif Eldin Adam, a 26-year-old university student who had worked at the mine for three months, described helping rescue injured people and recover bodies after the bombing.

"We were overcome with terror," said Saif Eldin Adam, a university student.

Adam also described the aftermath of the attack to The New York Times.

"There are no words for what we saw," said Saif Eldin Adam, a university student.

Emergency Lawyers said an attack across the international border would violate international law. The Egyptian military did not comment, and Egypt's foreign ministry had not immediately responded to a request for comment, according to CNN's report.

The latest incident follows another deadly attack on an artisanal gold mine in the Jabal al-Uqaydat region in June. According to Al Jazeera, that site was targeted with drones and artillery, killing several people. The Egyptian army said the operation took place within Egyptian territory and that security forces detained 223 people.

Egyptian authorities have continued security operations along the border, citing efforts to counter illegal migration, drug smuggling and unauthorized mining. The area remains difficult to police because of competing territorial claims and the limited presence of Sudanese state institutions.

Abdul Kareem Al-Almin Ahmed, a specialist in Egypt-Sudan border affairs, said the absence of effective Sudanese security and administrative control had increased the vulnerability of communities in the disputed region.

"The presence of the Egyptian Border Guard forces near the region, amid a complete lack of Sudanese military or administrative presence, has left the Sudanese highly vulnerable to Egyptian violations and encroachment," said Abdul Kareem Al-Almin Ahmed, a specialist in Egypt-Sudan border affairs.

Ahmed called for Sudan to raise the issue at the United Nations and establish clearly marked border points and observation posts along the frontier.

"What is required now from the Sudanese state – if it exists – is to elevate and escalate this issue to the United Nations as an encroachment on Sudanese territory. This must be followed by the immediate physical demarcation of border points in this region and along the entire border strip, in addition to establishing border observation posts along the entirety of the borders," said Abdul Kareem Al-Almin Ahmed, a specialist in Egypt-Sudan border affairs.

The frontier has remained disputed since the colonial period. Britain and Egypt designated the 22nd parallel north as the boundary in 1899, but the lack of physical demarcation and the area's mineral wealth have contributed to recurring tensions. A separate dispute over the Halaib Triangle has also strained relations between the two countries for more than a century.

Egypt has maintained effective control over the Halaib Triangle since Sudanese forces withdrew in 2000, following military clashes during the 1990s. The 20,580-square-kilometer territory along the Red Sea coast contains valuable mineral deposits and fertile land.

The latest deaths also highlight the economic pressures driving people into informal mining. Sudan's civil war, which began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has devastated livelihoods and weakened central authority. Gold has become an important source of revenue for both sides, while experts cited by CNN said substantial quantities of Sudanese gold are smuggled into Egypt.

Osama Ahmed Eidrous, a professor of strategic and security studies, argued that foreign involvement has contributed to the continuation of Sudan's conflict and its consequences for civilians.

"What is happening in Sudan is not a civil war; despite the presence of the Rapid Support Forces as one of the fighting parties in this war, this war is a war of external aggression within a large regional project," said Osama Ahmed Eidrous, a professor of strategic and security studies.

Eidrous linked the conflict to the weakening of Sudan's central government and its ability to secure the country's borders.

"Everything that is happening in Sudan now in terms of effects on the Sudanese citizen, the weakness of the central government and the difficulty of controlling the borders, all these things are caused by this ongoing war in Sudan," said Osama Ahmed Eidrous, a professor of strategic and security studies.

He also said the miners were civilian workers rather than combatants and had not been shown to pose a threat to either neighboring government.

"We are talking about miners working in gold mining and we have not heard that there was an armed clash, or that they were carrying weapons, or that they were fighting the Egyptian government or the Sudanese government," said Osama Ahmed Eidrous, a professor of strategic and security studies.

Eidrous further claimed that Egyptian aircraft had struck Sudanese miners for a second time and put the death toll at 85, higher than the 72 fatalities recorded by Emergency Lawyers.

"They are Sudanese citizen miners who were suddenly attacked by the Egyptian aviation and struck for the second time, killing 85 of them," said Osama Ahmed Eidrous, a professor of strategic and security studies.

Sudan's broader conflict continues to produce mass-casualty incidents as drone attacks become increasingly prominent. The United Nations said approximately 31 people were killed in a drone strike on a displacement camp in an army-controlled area of Blue Nile state on the Friday before the mining-site attack.