Survivors of a deadly airstrike on a gold-mining site near the Sudan-Egypt border have recounted how an aircraft allegedly circled overhead before launching an attack that left 72 people feared dead.
The strike occurred last week at Jabal al-Uqaydat, an extensive gold-mining area in the mountains near the border, a region that spans territory claimed by both Sudan and Egypt.
Rights groups have blamed the Egyptian air force for the attack, although Egypt’s military has not directly acknowledged responsibility for the reported strike.
Ali Mohamed Hamza, one of the miners injured in the incident, said the attack began while workers were preparing tea early in the morning.
“We were working, and then, around 8 in the morning, we prepared some tea, while an aircraft appeared overhead and began filming us, circling above about three times, on the fourth pass, it struck us,” he said.
Another survivor, Omar Mohie El Deen Abdullah, said the initial strike hit the middle of a gathering of miners, killing several people.
“The first strike caused an explosion right in the middle of the miners. There were nearly 300 people or more there at the time,” he said.
Abdullah said he suffered an injury to one finger but lost his brother, cousin and maternal cousin in the attack.
The mining area has attracted growing numbers of informal miners as Sudan’s ongoing war has destroyed livelihoods and forced thousands of people to seek alternative sources of income.
Gold remains one of Sudan’s few functioning economic lifelines and a significant source of revenue for parties involved in the conflict. The region is also considered an important corridor for smuggling.
Omar Abdullah, the father of another victim, Osman Omar, said the collapse of agricultural activities had pushed many people into gold mining to survive.
“Most of our work here is in agriculture, but the current farming season has largely failed, as a result, everyone has turned to mining to try and earn a living. A sack of flour here has reached 700,000 Sudanese pounds,” he said.
Egypt’s military, without directly addressing allegations that its air force carried out the deadly strike, said on Monday that the armed forces and police were conducting an operation against illegal gold mining near the Sudanese border.
The operation, it said, was intended to “impose full sovereignty within the borders of the Egyptian state” and protect the country’s resources.
The military added that warning leaflets had been dropped before the operation targeting what it described as criminal elements involved in illegal mining.
It also cautioned against what it called misleading rumours and foreign agendas that could undermine relations between Egypt and Sudan.
Sudan’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has ordered an investigation into what he described as a “painful incident in a border area between Sudan and Egypt.”
According to the Transitional Sovereignty Council, which Burhan heads as army chief, he established a fact-finding committee comprising prosecutors, judicial officials and security representatives to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident and submit a report.
Burhan’s foreign affairs adviser, Amjad Farid, condemned the reported attack, describing it 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, but argued that airstrikes against civilians were unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, during a telephone conversation with his Sudanese counterpart, emphasised the mutual respect between the two countries, including respect for each other’s territorial integrity and border security.
The latest incident is the second reported airstrike this year on Jabal al-Uqaydat.
In June, airstrikes reportedly carried out by Egypt killed 23 workers at the same informal mining site.
At the time, the Egyptian military did not claim responsibility for the strikes but announced that it had conducted a large-scale operation against illegal gold mining within Egyptian territory.
