Strike on Sudanese gold mine kills at least 72 miners, rights group blames Egypt

What happened

Emergency Lawyers, a rights monitor based in Khartoum, says an airstrike hit an artisanal gold mining site in northern Sudan on Saturday, 10 October 2026, killing at least 72 people. The group made its accusation public on Sunday, 11 October, and Reuters could not immediately verify it. Images shared on social media and by local rights groups, which Reuters has not verified, show dozens of bodies in rubble and others wrapped in funeral shrouds. The New York Times, citing rights groups, graphic video and eyewitnesses, reported that warplanes bombed an open air mine in River Nile State, roughly 25 miles from the Sudan-Egypt border.

Footage from the aftermath showed badly mutilated bodies of young men scattered among sacks of mineral ore. A 26-year-old university student who had worked at the mine for three months said he helped rescue the wounded and recover the dead.

We were overcome with terror,

Saif Eldin Adam added a second observation about what he saw at the site.

There are no words for what we saw.

The same week, a separate drone strike on a displacement camp in an army-controlled area of Sudan's Blue Nile state killed some 31 people on Friday, 9 October, according to the United Nations.

Casualty figures differ by source

The figure of 72 dead comes from Emergency Lawyers, and it has not been independently confirmed in the articles. Two eyewitnesses interviewed by The New York Times put the death toll at at least 65, with another 120 or more wounded. Miners who were at the site told Sudan Tribune that about 200 people were killed and hundreds wounded, and that around 15,000 miners fled into the mountains afterwards. These counts are not reconciled, and the 200 figure rests on the miners' own account.

Egypt's silence and the accusations

Emergency Lawyers attributed the strike to the Egyptian air force, and Sudanese media and several rights groups blamed Egypt for it. The Egyptian military did not comment, and Egypt's foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Abdul Kareem Al-Almin Ahmed, a specialist in Egypt-Sudan border affairs, told Al Jazeera that the situation leaves Sudanese citizens exposed to Egyptian encroachment.

The presence of the Egyptian Border Guard forces near the region, amid a complete lack of Sudanese military or administrative presence, has left the Sudanese highly vulnerable to Egyptian violations and encroachment.

He called on the Sudanese state to take the matter to the United Nations. Ahmed also urged the immediate physical demarcation of border points along the entire border strip.

Gold, border and earlier strikes

Gold has become the key cash source for both warring sides, and experts and people in the sector say much of it is smuggled into Egypt. The border was designated on maps along the 22nd parallel in 1899, but the lack of physical demarcation, combined with the gold wealth of the area, has left it open to dispute. In June, miners accused Egyptian forces of a drone attack on another gold mine in the Jabal al-Uqaydat area, with the reported death toll at 15 according to Volkskrant and 23 according to La Libre. The Egyptian army said at the time that it had carried out an operation "within Egyptian territory" and detained 223 people. Guido Lanfranchi, a Horn of Africa expert at the Clingendael institute, told Volkskrant that Egypt may also be trying to drive illegal miners away so that investors turn to official Egyptian mines.

Investigation and what comes next

On Monday, 12 October, Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhane set up a commission to investigate the circumstances of the incident, according to a communiqué from the Sovereignty Council that he heads. The commission is made up of prosecutors, judicial officials and representatives of the security services. The border area is held by the Sudanese Armed Forces, which Egypt supports, and Sudan's leaders have not openly condemned the deadly strikes. The war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, and the RSF receive support from the United Arab Emirates. Reuters notes that the conflict has seen more mass-casualty events as drone warfare has become the primary mode of fighting.