Egypt's military says a fourth phase of its campaign against unauthorised gold mining on the border with Sudan begins on 7 November, in coordination with Sudan's army. A Sudanese civilian coalition has demanded an international inquiry into deadly strikes on miners in June and October.
Egypt's armed forces spokesperson announced on Thursday 5 November that a fourth phase of the military's campaign against unauthorised gold mining in the Eastern Desert would begin on Saturday 7 November, Reuters reported. The spokesperson said two officers, including a senior border guard officer, had been killed during the operations, without saying when. Since the campaign began in June, 151 Egyptians and 540 foreign nationals have been detained, he said, adding that there was continuing coordination with Sudan and that both armies were exchanging information to secure the border.
In a statement dated Friday 6 November and published by Sabah News and Sudanile, the Sudanese Declaration of Principles Forces said the new phase targeted poor Sudanese miners and was being carried out in coordination with the army authorities in Sudan. The coalition rejected Egypt's description of miners as gangs and criminals, and said it doubted Cairo's assertion that operations take place only inside Egyptian territory without harming civilians.
Demands for an inquiry
The coalition said strikes on 10 October in the Al-Uqaydat mining area of Red Sea state had reportedly killed more than 200 miners, following earlier strikes on Jabal Al-Uqaydat on 16 June attributed to Egyptian aircraft. It said no investigation or accountability had followed either incident, and demanded an independent international inquiry. It warned that the miners' plight could become a pretext for Egyptian forces to extend into more Sudanese territory, recalled Sudan's claim to the Egyptian-administered Halaib and Shalateen area, and said further civilian deaths would be taken to the AU, the Arab League and the UN. It also accused Sudan's army authorities of failing to protect the border, The Sudan Times reported.
Casualty figures for the October strikes are disputed and unverified. Sudan's Emergency Lawyers group reported at least 72 deaths; Tasis and other groups put the toll above 200. Egypt has not formally acknowledged carrying out strikes inside Sudan. Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ordered an investigation in October.
Questions over officer deaths
The Sudan Times reported on 7 November that one of the officers named in the military's briefing appeared to match a border guard chief of staff whose funeral the Egyptian newspaper El Watan had reported on 10 March. Egyptian authorities have not commented on the discrepancy. Allegations by Sudanese journalists that Cairo was reviving old casualty reports to justify the campaign have not been substantiated.
Gold is a key source of revenue in wartime Sudan, and much of it is smuggled north through the disputed border area, according to industry participants cited by Reuters.
Image: Camel herders in the desert of the Halaib area near the Egypt–Sudan border, 2014. Mohamed shokry algarnosy, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.