A gold mine collapsed in southern Sudan, killing at least 60 small-scale miners, two survivors told AFP on Wednesday, while many more are missing and feared dead under the rubble.
Shafts began collapsing in the Al-Zaraa mine near the town of El-Nahud in West Kordofan on Tuesday, and by the following morning 60 bodies had been retrieved.
“We don’t know how many more are still inside,” one of the survivors, Khair al-Sayyed Jabara, told AFP after an all-night rescue operation with fellow miners, using the same rudimentary tools they use to mine.
“Everyone’s working very hard to retrieve the bodies or any survivors, but it’s difficult. We need heavy machinery to clear the rock and soil.”
Since war erupted in April 2023 between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the war efforts of both sides have been largely funded by the gold industry, in addition to foreign backers.
The conflict has devastated Sudan’s already fragile economy and left much of the country out of work, pushing many into a dangerous gold rush.
Nearly all of the gold smuggled or exported from Sudan is routed through the United Arab Emirates, which denies widespread reports it arms the RSF.
Artisanal and small-scale mining, which takes place in decommissioned mines or unofficial zones like Al-Zaraa, accounts for the majority of gold extracted.
Al-Amin Suleiman, another miner who was working at the rim of Al-Zaraa on Tuesday, told AFP that “the shafts here are all close together, if one collapses, it brings down all the ones next to it.”
“This is what happened here. So far, 60 bodies have been pulled out, but there are people still trapped underground since yesterday. I don’t think they are alive.”
A large-scale rescue operation is all but impossible in West Kordofan, which is under RSF control, along with the neighboring Darfur region where the paramilitary has been accused of genocide.
Despite declaring a parallel government, their governing capabilities remain limited, and people in western Sudan remain mostly reliant on aid and local community networks for survival.
Even before the war pushed nearly 20 million Sudanese into severe hunger, artisanal mining employed more than two million people, according to industry figures.
Africa’s third-largest country is one of the continent’s top gold producers, and recorded a “five-year high” of 70 tons of production last year, it said.
But officials say most of the gold is smuggled across Sudan’s borders, including through Chad, South Sudan and Egypt before reaching the UAE, the world’s second-largest gold exporter.
