Sudanese parties accuse Egypt of deadly airstrikes on gold mines

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Sudan's Sovereignty Council chairman Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. [Courtesy]

Dozens of artisanal gold miners were killed and wounded after airstrikes hit mining sites in eastern Sudan, eyewitnesses have claimed.

This is even as Sudanese political parties accused Egypt of responsibility.

Eyewitnesses and local sources, cited by Sahih Sudan, a Sudanese online news platform, said two strikes hit the Jabal al-Aqaydat mine in the Jibit area at 6 a.m on June 16, with a separate strike targeting a second mine nearby.

Exact casualty figures could not be independently verified, and the identity of the aircraft involved could not be confirmed.

Survivors said they fled on foot for 120 kilometres to reach the al-Ansari market, one of Sudan's oldest mining trading centres, where the dead and injured were taken.

An unknown number of people remained stranded along the route at the time of reporting.

A ground operation involving about 60 military vehicles with air cover also targeted the second site, according to survivors.

Communication blackouts and road closures prevented independent confirmation of losses there, though survivors described conditions at that site as worse.

Miners cited by the platform said the area has long been disputed over mining rights, with a previous ground attack during Ramadan leaving nine miners dead.

A week of aerial surveillance preceded Tuesday's strikes, they said. The "Joint Forces" unit assigned to protect the mine withdrew four hours before the attack, miners alleged.

Several Sudanese political parties accused Egypt in their statements. The Republican Party described the incident as "treacherous Egyptian aggression" and called for a unified national response.

The Darfur Victims Support Organisation said it held the Egyptian army fully responsible and appealed to the UN Security Council for urgent intervention, describing it as the third such attack in a short period.

The Sudanese Congress Party condemned the attack as evidence of lost national sovereignty without explicitly naming Egypt.

An adviser to Sudan's Sovereignty Council chairman Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Amjad Farid, said in a post on X that the incident required a response grounded in "the logic of statehood and responsibility" and that direct communication channels with Cairo remain open.

The Sudanese government and Egyptian government had not issued official statements at the time of publication.