At least 72 civilian gold miners were killed in airstrikes on a mining site in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border, according to the Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers, which accused the Egyptian air force of carrying out the attack.
The strikes took place on Saturday in the Jabal al-Uqaydat area, a remote, mountainous region known for informal gold mining. Emergency Lawyers said the reported death toll was preliminary and that efforts to document and verify the casualties were continuing.
Survivors told Agence France-Presse that an aircraft appeared over the mining area in the morning and carried out repeated strikes. One miner, Abdelaziz Youssef, said the aircraft attacked five times, killing people at the site. He said workers fled toward the surrounding mountains, fearing further bombardment.
Another survivor, Sharaf Ali, said thousands of people had been working at the mine when the attack occurred. He said miners scattered in different directions afterward, making it difficult to determine the exact number of people killed. Some workers were feared trapped beneath the rubble, while the site’s remote location complicated access and rescue efforts.
The incident is the second reported deadly airstrike this year at an informal gold-mining site in the area. In June, 23 workers were reportedly killed in a similar attack. At the time, the Egyptian military said it had conducted a large-scale operation against illegal gold mining within Egyptian territory, but it did not claim responsibility for the latest strikes.
The border region lies near the disputed Halaib Triangle, which both Sudan and Egypt claim. Emergency Lawyers said the latest attack occurred inside Sudanese territory and argued that repeated strikes on resource-rich border areas raised concerns about Sudan’s sovereignty and control over its mineral resources.
Informal gold mining has expanded as Sudan’s war, which began in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has disrupted livelihoods and weakened economic activity. Gold has become an important source of income and financing amid the conflict, while smuggling and other illicit trade have complicated efforts to regulate mining in remote areas.
Emergency Lawyers condemned the reported attack and warned against violence targeting civilians in mineral-rich border regions. The full circumstances of the strike, the final casualty toll and responsibility for the attack remain unclear.
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