Dozens of gold workers in northern Sudan were killed over the weekend after warplanes bombed an open air mine near the Egyptian border, according to Sudanese rights groups, graphic video and eyewitnesses interviewed by The New York Times.
Footage from the aftermath of the bombing showed badly mutilated bodies of young men scattered amid sacks of mineral ore at a remote site in River Nile State, roughly 25 miles from Sudan’s border with Egypt.
“We were overcome with terror,” said Saif Eldin Adam, 26, a university student who worked at the mine for the past three months. Mr. Adam said he helped rescue the wounded and recover the dead after the strikes.
“There are no words for what we saw,” he said.
Emergency Lawyers, a rights group, estimated the death toll at 72. Two eyewitnesses said it was at least 65, with another 120 or more wounded.
The attack occurred hundreds of miles from the front lines of Sudan’s devastating civil war. Sudanese media reports and several rights groups blamed the strike on Egypt. Last June, miners accused Egyptian forces of carrying out a drone attack on another gold mine in the same region.
Sudan mines billions of dollars in gold every year, with the two warring sides using the profits to bankroll their fight. Sudan’s military has bombed mines controlled by its enemy, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, in the far south of the country, in an effort to curtail a valuable source of finance.
The attack on Saturday was striking because it occurred in an army-controlled area largely untouched by fighting, and because the loudest accusations were directed at Egypt, a country that has been a staunch ally of Sudan’s military throughout the war.
In February, The Times revealed a covert Egyptian drone base that supported the Sudanese military’s war effort.
In a statement, Egypt’s military spokesman said its forces were in the third phase of “a major campaign to combat illegal gold prospecting in the Eastern Desert,” which came after leaflets were dropped to warn what he called “criminal elements.”
But the statement insisted that Egyptian forces had been acting inside their own borders, and not in Sudanese territory.
Sudan’s military avoided pointing fingers. On Monday the military chief, Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, announced an investigation into what he called a “painful incident.”
The bombing was notable in Sudan, even during an atrocity-laden conflict that has seen credible accusations of genocide, chemical weapons use, mass rape and starvation.
The targets of the strike appeared to be poor, largely young miners laboring in harsh conditions in a remote area. Graphic footage filmed in the aftermath of the strikes shows severely wounded civilians. Other videos filmed by miners show fighter jets flying over the area and munitions striking the ground.
“Just scatter, guys! Scatter!” one witness shouts as a plume of smoke rises from the mountain and a plane is heard flying overhead.
One of them described to The Times how the strikes unfolded.
During a video call, Bahar Eldin Hassan said that warplanes and helicopters made several passes over the mine early on Saturday. From about 9 a.m., warplanes bombed the site at least three times over the course of an hour, he said.
About 35 people died in the first strike, he said, adding: “I cannot describe how terrible the scenes we saw were.”
Artisanal mining, where poor men dig for riches at informal mines, is booming across Africa. Soaring prices for gold, copper and other minerals have drawn workers across a wide belt of the continent. But artisanal mining is also notorious for dangers and human rights abuses, including child labor.
Mr. Adam, a student at Sudan University of Science and Technology, said he took shelter in a mining pit alongside a “terrified” child after the strikes. “He wanted to run away without knowing where he was going, but I managed to convince him to stay,” he said. “When we came out, the scene was horrific. I broke down crying.”
Footage appeared to show more than two dozen bodies wrapped in fabric following the strikes. In yet another video, a crowd is gathered outside a medical center where dozens of victims were reportedly taken, according a local Sudanese report.
Videos taken in the aftermath of the strikes showed what appeared to be Egyptian munitions. One video showed what looked to be an unexploded Egyptian NASR 400 bomb, according to Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician who analyzed the footage for The Times.
In June, Egypt’s military said in a statement that it had begun a security campaign targeting criminal networks and what it described as illegal mining in southern Egypt, near the border with Sudan.
Its campaign included a Facebook video urging miners to leave the area before they were detained by the authorities.
Days later, several miners were killed on the Sudanese side of the border following an attack by Egypt’s military, according to The Sudan Tribune and witness accounts posted on social media. Some reports said the Egyptians distributed leaflets warning miners that they could be “considered a target for immediate attack” if they remained in the area.
The Times was unable to immediately verify the precise location of the attacks on Saturday, given the expansive mountainous area where the footage was filmed. The Times confirmed that the footage did not appear online before Saturday, and geographic features in the video matched other footage showing the aftermath of the strikes.
The scenes depicted were consistent with local reporting, and several of the videos were posted to the TikTok accounts of miners who work in the area.
“Those killed were like brothers to us,” said Mr. Adam. “ We worked together, we ate together, we sat around chatting together. That was our lives.”
Despite its dangers, gold mining has become an economic mainstay in Sudan during a war that has otherwise devastated the economy. Even after a bombing, some miners said they had little choice but to continue.
Mr. Hassan, who uses his earnings to support eight brothers and one sister, said he expected to be back at work soon.
Sanjana Varghese and James McManagan contributed reporting.
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