Sudan’s Sovereignty Council statement on miners killed near the Egypt border, in an image Rich Tedd of AfriMEOSINT shared on X on October 12, 2026, saying the council had announced a fact-finding committee. (Image: AfriMEOSINT on X)
Sudan’s army chief ordered an investigation on Monday into an airstrike on a gold mine near the Sudan-Egypt border that killed at least 72 workers, a Sudanese rights group said.
Emergency Lawyers, which documents atrocities in Sudan’s war, accused the Egyptian air force of carrying out the attack on Saturday at Jabal Al-Uqaydat. AFP said it could not independently confirm the account. The group said the attack “resulted in the deaths of 72 civilian miners, according to preliminary information, while efforts to document and verify the casualty toll are ongoing.”
The strike was the second this year on the informal mining site. Airstrikes, reportedly by Egypt, killed 23 workers there in June. The Egyptian army did not claim those earlier strikes but said at the time that it had conducted a “large-scale operation” against illegal gold mining within its borders and that 223 people were detained, including 136 foreign nationals. Emergency Lawyers said Saturday’s attack happened inside Sudanese territory. The border is disputed, and both countries claim the resource-rich Halayeb triangle. Cairo is also a key ally of Sudan’s army in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Two survivors described the escape to AFP. Miner Abdelaziz Youssef said a jet appeared overhead at around 8:00 am on Saturday and “struck five times, many people were killed.” “We ran up the mountain terrified of another strike,” he said. Another survivor, Sharaf Ali, said thousands of people were working at the remote site when it was hit. “After the airstrike people scattered, some people came to Al-Ansary market, others went in the other direction, that’s why no one knows how many exactly were killed,” he said from the gold market just south of the Halayeb triangle. Both said they saw bodies on the ground as they fled, with many more feared trapped under rubble hours from any urban center.
Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council paid tribute to the dead and announced a fact-finding committee, Rich Tedd of AfriMEOSINT wrote on X on Monday, sharing the council’s statement. The council said Sudanese and Egyptian leaders had been in contact since the incident. Mwanzo TV reported that army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ordered an investigation into what he called a “painful incident” involving Sudanese miners. Ayin Network, a Sudanese media outlet, wrote on X that at least 200 people were killed and hundreds critically injured after air strikes hit artisanal mining sites and camps in the Shamal al-Wadi area, and that missiles struck miner camps and collapsed underground shafts around 6 a.m. Mereja could not verify the higher toll. Somalia 24 English summarised reports putting the dead as high as 200, while stressing that responsibility had not been independently confirmed.
Since April 2023, Sudan’s war has killed more than 200,000 people and pushed many into dangerous gold mining that fuels both sides’ war efforts, AFP reported. The mountainous belt stretches for hundreds of kilometers and includes the disputed Halayeb triangle. Emergency Lawyers said repeated attacks on the gold-rich border regions reflect a desire by Egyptian authorities to expand control over Sudan’s natural resources. Egypt has said its earlier operation was inside Egyptian territory and aimed at illegal mining and arms smuggling. The porous border has long been a route for gold, illicit trade and human trafficking.
Accounts on X in Arabic and English shared graphic footage and mourning posts. Brown Land, a Sudanese media outlet, summarised the council’s condolences and the judicial-security fact-finding committee. Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia signed the El Alamein declaration last week, which Ethiopia rejected, while Addis Ababa faces its own war in the north.
On Monday, Egypt’s military spokesman said armed forces and police were carrying out a third phase of a campaign against illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert after dropping warning leaflets, to “impose full sovereignty within the borders of the Egyptian state” and protect national resources, according to AFP and Anadolu Agency. The statement did not directly address allegations that Egyptian aircraft struck Jabal Al-Uqaydat. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke by phone with his Sudanese counterpart Mohieddin Salem and stressed mutual respect for each state’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and borders, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said.
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