Anger and widespread condemnation erupted in Sudanese political circles following an air and ground attack on artisanal gold mining sites in the North Valley region of Red Sea State, and the attack resulted in the dozens of deaths and injuries among miners.

The “Sahih Sudan” platform quoted eyewitnesses and local sources as saying that the Jabal al-Aqad mine, located within Sudanese territory in the Jibit locality, experienced two airstrikes carried out by two aircraft belonging to the Egyptian government at 6:00 a.m Tuesday.

The Sudanese Founding Alliance (Ta’sis) condemned what it termed the “Egyptian attack,” deeming it a violation of national sovereignty, and claimed in its statement that the attack was carried out in coordination with what it called the “army of the Islamic Movement.”

These attacks resulted in the death and injury of dozens of workers at the site, while survivors were forced to flee on foot for approximately 120 kilometers to reach the nearest water source at the al-Ansari market, one of the oldest mining markets in the country.

The dead and wounded were transported to the market, while a number of those who fled remained stranded on the road at the time of this report.According to one survivor, the operation began Monday evening and continued to Tuesday morning.

The raid on Jabal al-Aqad coincided with a similar airstrike targeting the Jabal al-Aqaba mine in the same area. Confirmed details regarding the extent of the losses are still unavailable due to communication outages and the closure of the road leading to the site following a ground operation.

However,Survivors’ testimonies indicate that the situation at Jabal al-Aqaba is more dire than at Jabal al-Aqad, as the airstrikes were followed by a large-scale ground operation involving approximately 60 military vehicles with air cover.

Miners therefore stated that the area is witnessing an ongoing dispute with the Egyptian side over mining rights, pointing to a previous ground attack carried out by Egyptian infantry on the 19th of Ramadan, which resulted in the deaths of nine miners.

An intensive aerial reconnaissance ensued  before the latest raid, and sources noted that the “Joint Forces,” tasked with protecting the mine site’s in exchange for 10% of the miners’ production, withdrew from the site four hours before the raid, which exacerbated the situation and increased the number of casualties.

On the political front, several Sudanese parties and alliances condemned the attack, while the Sudanese Congress Party issued a statement describing the incident as evidence of the country’s lost sovereignty and the collapse of the “narrative of dignity,” without explicitly mentioning Egypt.

In contrast, the Republican Party issued a more strongly worded statement, describing the incident as a “treacherous Egyptian aggression” and calling for a unified national stance. Widespread Political Condemnation

For its part, the Darfur Victims Support Organization condemned what it described as the Egyptian air force’s bombing of Sudanese miners, holding the Egyptian army fully responsible. It described the incident as the third of its kind in a short period and appealed to the UN Security Council for urgent intervention to stop what it considered a repeated aggression against civilians.

In contrast, the de facto authorities in Sudan have not issued any official statement clarifying the circumstances of the incident or the fate of the victims. The Red Sea State government and central security agencies have remained silent thus far.

Similarly, the Egyptian government has not issued any official comment on the airstrikes or the alleged ground operation, despite the numerous testimonies and documented videos that have circulated widely on social media platforms.

This official silence from both sides is met with growing anger among miners and the families of the victims, who consider what happened a blatant violation of Sudanese sovereignty and a direct targeting of unarmed civilians, amidst the absence of any transparent investigation or legal accountability to date.

Some observers have reportedly suggested that the Egyptian authorities are seeking to clear artisanal mining areas in Sudan of Sudanese workers in preparation for taking complete control of them. This claim has not been confirmed or officially commented on by the Egyptian side as of the time of this report