Sudan gold mine collapse kills 82, injures 50; more feared trapped

KHARTOUM A gold mine collapsed in southern Sudan killing at least 82 people, and injured 50, while many more are missing and feared dead under the rubble.

A source in the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which controls the area, told AFP: “There is an unknown number of people still trapped under the rubble and rescue efforts are being conducted with rudimentary methods.”

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 country’s gold trade, valued at billions of dollars.

With much of the country out of work, many young Sudanese have joined a dangerous gold rush, mostly in unregulated mines such as Al Zaraa in West Kordofan.

The mine’s shafts began collapsing on Tuesday with dozens of small-scale miners underground. By the following morning 82 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 extract gold.

“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.”

Most of Sudan’s gold is extracted from artisanal and small-scale mining, which takes place in decommissioned mines or unofficial zones like Al Zaraa.

Miners work with their hands and rudimentary tools for meagre daily wages. To clear gold nuggets from bits of earth, they are exposed to hazardous chemicals including cyanide that often cause widespread illnesses in nearby areas.

The European Union in July banned the sale, transfer and export of mercury and cyanide to Sudan, for their use in the exploitative gold trade.

Mine collapses are common across Sudan. In the country’s army-controlled north and east, they occur in decommissioned mine shafts where young men sneak in to try to earn a day’s wage.

The resource-rich greater Kordofan region, to the south, has many unofficial mines that are effectively large, unsecured pits in the ground, where dozens of young men work every day.

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, 82 bodies have been pulled out, but there are people still trapped underground since yesterday. I don’t think they are alive,” he said.

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 tonnes of production last year, it said.

But officials say most of the gold is smuggled across Sudan’s borders.

In July, the EU and the United Kingdom announced sanctions targeting Sudan’s gold trade.