16 September :At least 60 workers have been killed in the collapse of a gold mine in Sudan, two miners who survived the devastating accident told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday.
A series of tunnels at the Al-Jara gold mine near the town of El-Nuhud in the West Kordofan region began collapsing on Tuesday, 15 September. By the following morning, 60 bodies had been recovered from the rubble. The number of people still trapped inside the mine remains unknown, while many missing workers are feared dead.
Survivor Khair Al-Sayed Jabara told AFP that he and fellow miners worked throughout the night to rescue their colleagues. They used the basic equipment normally employed to extract gold from the mine during the rescue operation.
Workers involved in the rescue effort are making every possible attempt to recover bodies and find survivors. However, removing the rocks and soil has proved extremely difficult.
Rescuers said heavy machinery was urgently needed to continue the operation.
Sudan has been embroiled in a war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023. Gold mining provides a significant portion of the funding used by both sides to conduct the conflict, alongside foreign assistance.
The prolonged war has further devastated Sudan’s already fragile economy. With large numbers of people left unemployed, many have turned to dangerous informal gold mining in search of livelihoods.
Reports indicate that almost all gold smuggled or exported from Sudan passes through the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE, however, has denied allegations that it supplies extensive arms to the RSF.
Gold mining in Sudan is often carried out on a small scale in abandoned mines or informal mining areas such as Al-Jara. Most of the country’s gold production comes from such artisanal and small-scale mining operations.
Another miner, Al-Amin Suleiman, who was working outside the Al-Jara mine on Tuesday, told AFP that the tunnels in the area were located extremely close to one another.
“When one tunnel collapses, the neighbouring tunnels also collapse,” he said. “That is exactly what happened here. So far, 60 bodies have been recovered. But many more have been trapped underground since yesterday. I do not think they are still alive.”
Large-scale rescue operations have become almost impossible in West Kordofan, which is currently controlled by the RSF. The neighbouring Darfur region is also under RSF control, where the paramilitary group has been accused of genocide.
Although the RSF has announced the formation of a parallel government, its administrative capacity remains limited. As a result, people in western Sudan largely depend on humanitarian assistance and support from local communities to survive.
Source: AFP