At least 70 artisanal miners were killed when a gold mine collapsed in Sudan’s West Kordofan state, with a series of adjoining shafts caving in on one another at the al-Zaraa mine near the town of al-Nuhud.
The collapse happened on Tuesday, and was reported on Wednesday by the Kordofan Observatory, a monitoring group, Al Jazeera reported. A number of miners were left trapped.
A higher figure from the group that controls the ground
The reported death toll is not settled. A source in the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which controls the area, told the AFP news agency that at least 82 people were killed and another 50 wounded — a figure carried in the same reports as the Observatory’s 70. The source spoke anonymously, saying he was not authorised to talk to the media.
“There is an unknown number of people still trapped under the rubble and rescue efforts are being conducted with rudimentary methods,” he said.
The Sudan Doctors Network, a Khartoum-based medical group, said search efforts were continuing and the casualty figure could rise further. No outlet reconciles the two numbers, and neither has been independently verified.
Residents dug with their own tools
No specialised rescue teams joined the effort. Residents with rudimentary tools were left struggling to pull survivors out of loose, sandy soil, the Kordofan Observatory said.
Khair al-Sayyed Jabara, who survived the collapse, told AFP he and fellow miners had dug through the night to reach those trapped, and that heavy equipment was needed. “We don’t know how many more are still inside,” he said.
Another miner, Amin Suleiman, described the mechanism of the disaster: the shafts had been sunk so closely together that each one pulled down those beside it as it gave way.
Local sources told Reuters the high death toll was the result of an absence of safety procedures and rescue equipment. The Sudan Doctors Network said the site lacked basic safeguards for workers and condemned the “negligence” it said had put miners’ lives at serious risk.
Gold, and the war it funds
West Kordofan is held by the RSF, which has been fighting Sudan’s army since April 2023. Smuggled gold has been a key revenue source for the group.
“Mining activities in areas under RSF control, in the absence of safety standards and adequate protection and rescue equipment, turn mining into a direct threat to the lives of civilians,” the doctors’ group said, calling for the search to continue, for medical and logistical help to be provided, and for those controlling the area to end unregulated mining.
Sudan is among Africa’s leading gold producers. Most of its output comes from dangerous informal digging at disused or unofficial sites.
Not reported
No account gives the number of miners working the site when it collapsed, how many remain unaccounted for, or whether any heavy equipment has since reached al-Zaraa. Neither the RSF nor any Sudanese authority has issued an official toll, and no report says whether the rescue has been called off.
