Sudan’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has ordered an investigation into an airstrike that reportedly killed 72 people at a gold mining site near the Egyptian border.
Burhan, who heads Sudan’s army and the Transitional Sovereignty Council, described the incident as a “painful incident” after the strike hit the Jabal al-Uqaydat mining area on Saturday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a human rights group documenting abuses in Sudan’s ongoing war, said 72 people were killed in the attack and accused Egypt of carrying it out.
However, AFP said it could not independently verify the casualty figure or the allegation against Egypt, which had issued no official comment on the strike as of Monday.
A witness at the mining site said a plane carried out several strikes on Saturday morning, triggering panic among workers and others at the location.
In a statement on Monday, the Transitional Sovereignty Council announced that Burhan had established a fact-finding committee comprising prosecutors, judicial officials and security representatives to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident and submit a report.
The council also said Sudanese and Egyptian authorities had remained in contact since the attack to establish what happened.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, during a telephone conversation with his Sudanese counterpart on Monday, emphasised the mutual respect between the two countries, particularly regarding their territorial integrity and the security of their borders.
The attack occurred in a rugged, mineral-rich border region stretching hundreds of kilometres and encompassing the disputed Halayeb Triangle, an area claimed by both Sudan and Egypt.
Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has killed more than 200,000 people and triggered a severe humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has pushed many people into the hazardous gold mining industry, which has also become a source of funding for both sides.
Despite being one of Burhan’s closest regional allies, Egypt considers the conflict along its 1,200-kilometre border with Sudan a significant security threat.
The porous frontier east of the Nile has long been associated with gold smuggling, illicit trade and human trafficking, activities Egyptian authorities have sought to curb, including through mass deportations.
Amjad Farid, Burhan’s foreign relations adviser, had earlier condemned Saturday’s attack as an “unjustified and unacceptable crime”.
In a post on X, Farid said authorities had several options for enforcing the law and addressing border violations, arguing that airstrikes against civilians should not be among them, particularly when communication channels remained open.
The incident is the second reported airstrike this year on the Jabal al-Uqaydat mining site.
In June, airstrikes reportedly carried out by Egypt killed 23 workers at the same informal mine. Although the Egyptian military did not claim responsibility for that attack, it announced that it had conducted a “large-scale operation” against illegal gold mining within Egyptian territory.
