Sudan Gold Mine Collapse Kills at Least 82
Rescuers face challenges in a remote area as they search for dozens still missing.
The death toll from the collapse of an informal gold mine in a remote area of Sudan has risen to 82, according to local officials and activists, as rescuers struggled to search for the missing with limited equipment. The collapse occurred at the al-Zara gold mine in Nuhud, a town in West Kordofan province, which is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Suleiman Abu Hmeida, a member of the Emergency Response Rooms, a grassroots network monitoring the conflict, told The Associated Press that rescuers pulled out 82 bodies by Wednesday afternoon, but dozens remain unaccounted for. A local administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, corroborated the death toll and stated that the collapse began Sunday in one mine shaft and spread to interconnected shafts. The official noted that the availability of only one privately owned forklift is complicating the search efforts.
Survivors described the situation as dire, with a lack of necessary machinery to remove collapsed soil and rubble from depths of more than 30 meters (around 100 feet). Dozens of people were reportedly working in the mine when it collapsed.
The al-Zara gold mine is one of thousands of small-scale and informal mines across Sudan, a nation embroiled in a devastating war that has, at times, pushed parts of the country into famine. Deadly mine collapses are not uncommon in Sudan, a major gold producer, where safety standards are often not widely applied. A collapse in 2023 killed 14 miners, and another in 2021 claimed 38 lives.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical group tracking the war, reported earlier that 67 bodies had been pulled from the rubble and predicted the death toll could rise. The group stated that the mine, an informal site with unregulated workers, lacked basic safety and protective measures.
The Kordofan Observatory monitoring group reported that at least 70 miners were killed or missing at the site, which spans more than a kilometer across fragile, sandy soil. The miners were described as unregulated and informal workers.
Sudan plunged into full-scale war in April 2023 between the RSF and the Sudanese military. The conflict has resulted in at least 59,000 deaths, according to the monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, though aid organizations suggest the actual number is likely much higher. Experts commissioned by the United Nations have indicated that large quantities of gold have been smuggled out of the country to finance the RSF, which controls gold-producing areas in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.