Sudan’s deadly border strikes raise questions over Al-Burhan’s response to Egypt

By Staff Reporter.

Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has faced questions over his response to an October 10 airstrike that reportedly killed dozens of artisanal gold miners near the Egyptian border in Jabal al-Uqaydat.

Miners and activists identified the aircraft as Egyptian Air Force jets as videos of the dead circulated on Sudanese social media. However, Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and the authorities in Port Sudan did not publicly respond for two days. Sudan Tribune placed the site in the far north of Red Sea State, while The New York Times reported that it was in an army-controlled area largely untouched by the war, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ summary of the newspaper’s report.

Dozens of artisanal miners dead

The death toll remains disputed, with published figures ranging from 13 to more than 200. Two survivors told AFP that a jet struck the site at about 8 a.m. while thousands of people were working there.

Emergency Lawyers, a Khartoum-based rights group, put the toll at 72 the following day, citing preliminary information, Al Jazeera reported. The Sudan Doctors Network recorded 13 deaths and 28 injuries on the same day and warned that the figures could rise, according to the Associated Press.

Later accounts gave higher estimates. Two eyewitnesses told The New York Times that at least 65 people had been killed and 120 or more wounded. Three survivors told Sudan Tribune that at least 200 people had died and more than 15,000 workers had fled into caves and mountains. A health official treating the wounded told the Sudanese outlet Ayin that the death toll was likely between 150 and 250.

The varying figures have made it difficult to establish the full scale of the casualties.

Cairo’s account of its border operations

Egypt has not acknowledged carrying out the reported strike in Sudan, although officials have defended a campaign against illegal gold mining near the border.

Two Egyptian security officials told Reuters that an operation was intended to end “chaos” along the border and prevent Egyptian and Sudanese groups from taking control of mining areas, according to a Reuters report carried by SABC.

On October 12, military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Atman said the army and police were proceeding with the third phase of a campaign against illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert. He said the campaign followed the distribution of leaflets warning criminal elements and was intended to enforce full sovereignty within Egypt’s borders, Asharq Al-Awsat reported.

Atman’s statement placed the operation inside Egypt and did not mention an airstrike in Sudan. In a separate statement, the Egyptian army urged people in both countries to rely on official sources and dismissed what it called rumours and foreign agendas.

Emergency Lawyers disputed Cairo’s framing, accusing Egyptian aircraft of targeting civilian miners and alleging that repeated attacks reflected an attempt to take control of Sudan’s natural resources, AFP reported.

Khartoum’s first public response came on October 12, when the Sovereignty Council expressed condolences for Sudanese citizens killed in the border area and announced a fact-finding committee comprising prosecutors, judicial officials and security representatives, Sudan Tribune reported.

The council said Sudanese and Egyptian leaders had been in contact since the incident but stopped short of publicly blaming Egypt, Reuters reported.

A history of repeated attacks

The latest incident has renewed questions about Sudan’s ability to protect its sovereignty in the border area, an issue Al-Burhan has repeatedly presented as central to his leadership.

The council’s response followed a similar pattern after an earlier strike on the same mine. On June 16, two airstrikes hit Jabal al-Uqaydat at about 6 a.m., while another struck a nearby site, eyewitnesses told the Sudanese platform Sahih Sudan, according to The Standard. A Sudanese medical source later put the June death toll at 23, Mada Masr reported.

Ground operations followed on June 21, when a force of about 60 military vehicles surrounded mining sites in the Wadi El Atri area, opened fire and arrested 67 Sudanese miners, the rights group Darfur Victims Advocacy said, citing witnesses, according to Radio Dabanga.

Egypt’s military said it had detained 223 people, including 136 foreign nationals. Officials at the Argeen crossing said more than 3,000 deported Sudanese miners had passed through on their way to Dongola, the same report said.

Al-Burhan’s response under scrutiny

Al-Burhan first addressed the June strike in a speech to residents of Al-Ritaj in Red Sea State, where he said Sudan respected its neighbours to the north and east.

“Our northern neighbour must be respected, and its borders must not be crossed, so that people do not cause problems for themselves and for the state,” he said, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, which published the remarks in Arabic.

Following the October incident, Al-Burhan again ordered an investigation without naming the party responsible for the attack. His foreign relations adviser, Amjad Farid, meanwhile, described the incident as “an unjustified and unacceptable crime”.

Neither that statement nor Al-Burhan’s June call for a response grounded in the logic of the state, reported by The Standard, was followed by a publicly announced formal protest to Egypt, according to the accounts cited in the reporting.

The absence of a direct public accusation against Cairo has prompted questions about how Sudan’s military leadership is balancing border sovereignty with its relationship with Egypt.

Millions of dollars’ worth of gold smuggled

Jabal al-Uqaydat lies within the gold-rich Nubian Shield geological belt, and much of the gold mined along the border reportedly ends up in Egypt.

A March 2025 report by Chatham House researchers Ahmed Soliman and Suliman Baldo estimated that unofficial and smuggled exports to Egypt accounted for about 60 per cent of the gold produced in Sudan’s Northern, River Nile and Red Sea states. The report estimated that more than 100 kilograms were exported daily, with the total exceeding 60 tonnes in 2023 and 2024.

Official gold exports to Egypt in 2024 were worth about $16 million, representing around one per cent of Sudan’s total gold exports, according to Central Bank of Sudan data cited in the report.

The mine itself has been the subject of competing claims. Survivors told Sudan Tribune that Egyptian border guards had previously taken control of the mine and established a camp there before dismantling it. They alleged that an Egyptian patrol had warned them that the area lay inside Egypt. They also said they regularly saw heavy machinery and trucks transporting rock across the border.

In March, Sudanese miners reportedly expelled an Egyptian mining company from a disputed border area and burned some of its equipment. Clashes with Egyptian border guards followed, killing at least nine miners, local officials told Darfur24, which reported the account in June.

Allegations of possible coordination

Miners have also questioned the conduct of Sudan’s own forces.

A miner told Alhurra that the Joint Forces unit guarding the mountain, drawn from pro-government Darfur armed movements, withdrew a day before the June strike after workers clashed with staff from an Egyptian mining company nearby.

Miners quoted by Sahih Sudan said the unit had left four hours before the attack, according to The Standard.

Workers told Alhurra that the withdrawal and the government’s muted response led them to suspect that the two governments had coordinated to clear miners from the area for the Egyptian company. However, no evidence cited in these accounts has established such coordination.

The allegations have drawn attention to the close relationship between Cairo and Al-Burhan’s army. Egypt is one of the Sudanese army chief’s closest regional allies, although it regards the war along its 1,200-kilometre border with Sudan as a threat to its own security, AFP reported.

Satellite images reviewed by Reuters showed a Turkish-made Bayraktar Akinci drone at Egypt’s East Oweinat airstrip, about 60 kilometres from the Sudanese border, The New Arab reported in February. The New York Times reported that drones operating from the base were carrying out strikes inside Sudan.

An analysis published by The Horn Review in June argued that the Sudanese army had remained silent over the strikes because it depends on its alliance with Egypt in its fight against the Rapid Support Forces.

Civil society demands transparency and accountability

Political groups, armed movements and rights organisations have called for an international investigation, Sudan Tribune reported.

The civilian Somoud alliance, led by former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, said the targeting of civilians could not be justified on security grounds. It also held the authorities appointed by the armed forces responsible for events in areas under their control, The National reported.

The location of the strikes remains disputed. Egypt said its June operation took place inside Egyptian territory, while the Sudan Doctors Network described the October site as reportedly being part of Egypt. Sudanese groups, however, maintain that the raids hit Sudanese territory, Egypt Independent reported.

The area lies near Hala’ib and Shalateen, a territory claimed by Sudan but administered by Egypt. Mada Masr placed Shamal al-Wadi north of the disputed triangle, while AFP reported that the Al-Ansari gold market, where survivors fled, lies just south of it.

The competing accounts leave unresolved key questions about the location of the strikes, responsibility for the reported deaths and the response of Sudan’s military leadership. Calls for an investigation have intensified as civil society groups demand transparency and accountability for the civilians affected.