Sudan · updated 1h ago · 2 min read
Sudan Gold Mine Collapse Kills At Least 11 In Red Sea State, Search Continues
Eleven workers killed and about thirty injured in a Red Sea state gold mine collapse. The disaster follows another fatal collapse earlier in Kordofan region.
Casualty totals and injured counts.
3 of 4 outlets skipped it: rescue operation carried out by miners themselves due to little equipment.
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Casualty figures differ across outlets, suggesting incomplete or time-sensitive reporting.
Red Sea shaft collapse
A gold mine shaft collapsed in Sudan's Red Sea state, killing at least 11 miners and injuring 30, as a search continued for people feared trapped under debris. A state official said the collapse happened in Oni, a remote area in the northeastern Red Sea state, and the collapse began on Saturday night, according to Abdalhay Kharif Abakar, who worked in the area. A state-owned Sudanese Mineral Resources Company official said 11 bodies had been recovered by Sunday and 30 people had been rescued, while the search for missing miners was still under way.
The collapse was the second such incident at an informal gold mine in Sudan within a week, and last Sunday at least 82 people were killed when a series of mine shafts collapsed at another gold mine in western Sudan. The conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023 between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese military, has killed at least 59,000 people, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, and aid organizations say the toll is an undercount.
Competing death tolls
Survivors and AFP-linked reporting put the death toll at 10 in northern Sudan, with one survivor telling AFP that by Sunday morning "10 bodies had been recovered, and 21 injured miners pulled out." Another AFP-linked survivor said the rescue operation was "being carried out by the miners themselves" with little equipment available, while search efforts continued for missing workers. Al Jazeera reported a Sudanese government source saying 11 people were killed and 30 others injured in the Red Sea state collapse, and it said search operations were still ongoing amid fears of finding more victims.
Al Jazeera also described the collapse as following days after a Kordofan region disaster that left about 80 people dead and dozens injured, while AFP-linked accounts focused on the Onni mining area near the border with Egypt. The different tolls left the same incident described with varying figures, with one account citing 11 dead and 30 injured and another citing 10 dead and 21 injured.
War economy and risk
The collapse intensified scrutiny of unsafe informal mining amid war and weak oversight, with the India Today account describing thousands of small-scale and informal mines across Sudan. The India Today account said experts commissioned by the United Nations found large quantities of gold smuggled out of Sudan to finance the Rapid Support Forces, which controls gold-producing areas in Darfur and Kordofan. IAl Jazeera said the ongoing war had dealt a heavy blow to the local economy, pushing many Sudanese to engage in dangerous gold mining in informal areas or inactive mines.
Al Jazeera added that miners dig with their hands and with rudimentary tools for very low daily wages, extracting gold nuggets from rock masses inside mines that are not equipped, exposing workers to dangerous chemicals such as cyanide. The competing casualty figures and the continued search for missing miners left the immediate outcome unresolved, while the broader sources tied the mining sector to the war economy and recurring collapses.