Bombing of Sudanese gold miners near the Egyptian border sparks outrage over Army chief’s response
Sudanese army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan faces mounting criticism over his response to an airstrike that killed dozens of artisanal gold miners at Jabal al-Uqaydat, in the Shamal al-Wadi area near the Egyptian border, on Saturday, October 10, 2026.

Miners and activists identified the aircraft as Egyptian Air Force jets as videos of the dead spread across Sudanese social media, while Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and the Port Sudan authorities said nothing for two days. Sudan Tribune placed the site in the far north of Red Sea State, and The New York Times reported that it lay in an army-controlled area largely untouched by the war, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ summary of the Times report.

Death toll and displacements

The toll remains disputed, with published figures ranging from 13 to more than 200. Two survivors told AFP that a jet struck the site at about 8 a.m. while thousands of people were working there.

Emergency Lawyers, a Khartoum-based rights group, put the toll at 72 the next day, citing preliminary information, Al Jazeera reported. The Sudan Doctors Network recorded 13 dead and 28 wounded on the same day and warned that the figure would rise, the Associated Press reported.

Later counts were higher: two eyewitnesses told The New York Times that at least 65 people were killed and 120 or more wounded, and three survivors told Sudan Tribune that at least 200 died and more than 15,000 workers fled into caves and mountains. A health official treating the wounded told the Sudanese outlet Ayin that the toll was likely between 150 and 250.

Cairo Justifies the Strike as Al-Burhan Avoids Confrontation

Although Egypt has not officially acknowledged the strike, its officials have defended its purpose. Two Egyptian security officials told Reuters the operation was meant to end “chaos” along the border and stop Egyptian and Sudanese groups from seizing control of mining areas, according to a Reuters report carried by SABC.

On October 12, military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Atman said the army and police were pressing ahead with the third phase of a campaign against illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert, after dropping leaflets warning criminal elements, aimed at enforcing full sovereignty within Egypt’s borders, Asharq Al-Awsat reported. His statement placed the operation inside Egypt and did not mention an airstrike in Sudan. A separate army statement urged people in both countries to rely on official sources and dismissed what it called rumours and foreign agendas.

In response, Emergency Lawyers rejected Cairo’s framing, accusing Egyptian aircraft of targeting civilian miners. They told AFP that the repeated attacks showed Egypt’s desire to take control of Sudan’s natural resources.

Sudan’s first response came on October 12, when the Sovereignty Council expressed condolences for Sudanese citizens killed in the border area and announced a fact-finding committee of prosecutors, judicial officials and security representatives. The council said Sudanese and Egyptian leaders had been in contact since the incident.

Not the first time

The council’s statement followed the pattern Sudanese Army chief Al-Burhan set after an earlier strike on the same mine. On June 16, two airstrikes hit Jabal al-Uqaydat at 6 a.m. and another struck a nearby site, killing 23 people according to eyewitness reports.

Ground operations followed on June 21, when a force of about 60 military vehicles surrounded mining sites in the Wadi El Atri area, opened fire and arrested 67 Sudanese miners, the rights group Darfur Victims Advocacy said, citing witnesses. Egypt’s military said it had detained 223 people, including 136 foreign nationals and officials at the Argeen crossing said more than 3,000 deported Sudanese miners had passed through on their way to Dongola.

Investigations but no actions

Al-Burhan first addressed the June strike in a speech to residents of Al-Ritaj in Red Sea State, where he said Sudan respected its neighbours to the north and east. “Our northern neighbour must be respected, and its borders must not be crossed, so that people do not cause problems for themselves and for the state,” he said, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, which published the remarks in Arabic.

In October, Al-Burhan again ordered an investigation without naming the party responsible, but the sharpest words came from his adviser for foreign relations, Amjad Farid. Farid called the attack an “unjustified and unacceptable crime” and wrote on X that airstrikes on civilians could not be a way to deal with border violations while channels of communication remained open, AFP reported. Neither that statement nor his June call for a response grounded in the logic of the state was followed by a public formal protest to Egypt.

Sudan’s Gold, Wealth Guarded by Force

Jabal al-Uqaydat lies within the gold-rich Nubian Shield geological belt, and much of the gold mined along this border ends up in Egypt. A March 2025 Chatham House report by Ahmed Soliman and Suliman Baldo estimated that unofficial and smuggled exports to Egypt account for about 60 per cent of the gold produced in Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states, at a rate of more than 100 kilograms a day and a total of more than 60 tonnes in 2023 and 2024.

Official gold exports to Egypt in 2024 were worth about $16 million, around 1 per cent of Sudan’s total, according to the Central Bank of Sudan.