An air raid on a gold mining area near the disputed border between Sudan and Egypt has killed at least 72 workers, according to a Sudanese rights group. The Khartoum-based Emergency Lawyers, which documents atrocities in Sudan's war, said jets struck artisanal miners on Saturday in the Jabal al-Uqaydat region, in Sudan's River Nile state. It accused the Egyptian military of carrying out the attack. The toll is provisional and could rise, the group said. Egypt has issued no official comment, and the account could not be independently verified.
Survivors described chaos. Miner Abdelaziz Youssef told AFP a jet appeared overhead and "struck five times, many people were killed", adding that people ran up the mountain fearing another strike. Another survivor, Sharaf Ali, said thousands of people were working at the remote site, so nobody knows how many died; people scattered in different directions. Both said they saw bodies on the ground, with many more feared trapped under rubble, hours from any urban centre. The Paris-based Sudan Tribune, citing a survivor, reported that the toll could far exceed 72 and that many more were injured. Images shared on social media, which could not be verified, showed bodies among rubble and others wrapped in funeral shrouds.
It was the second such attack this year on the area. In June, strikes reportedly carried out by Egypt killed 23 workers. The Egyptian army did not claim those strikes but said it had conducted a "large-scale operation" against illegal gold mining "within Egyptian territory", detaining 223 people, including 136 foreigners, and announcing a campaign against illegal mining and arms smuggling. Egypt's border force said it seized 86 tonnes of gold ore. Sudan's de facto leader announced an investigation into the June strikes.
Emergency Lawyers says the latest attack hit Sudanese territory and called it a violation of Sudan's sovereignty that "may constitute war crimes". It argued that repeated strikes reflect a desire by Egyptian authorities to assert control over Sudan's natural resources. Sovereignty is genuinely contested: Sudan and Egypt both claim the resource-rich Halaib (also spelled Halayeb) Triangle, and the mountainous mining zone stretches for hundreds of kilometres.
Gold is at the heart of the tension. Since April 2023, the war between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed more than 200,000 people and pushed many civilians into dangerous artisanal mining, which fuels both sides' war efforts. The porous border, which runs 1,200 km from the Red Sea to Libya, has long been a route for gold, illicit trade and human trafficking, and smuggled gold may fund armed groups. Egypt, a backer of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, sees the war on its doorstep as a major security threat and has tried to stem cross-border flows, including through mass deportations.