At least 67 people died in the collapse of a gold mine in Sudan. According to a local official, only a single forklift is available for the search for those buried

At least 67 people died when shafts collapsed at the al-Zara gold mine near the town of al-Nuhud in Sudan's West Kordofan state. The figure was given on Wednesday by the Sudan Doctors Network, which has been tracking casualties during the war, and it warned that the number could still rise, as rescuers are still searching for people trapped under the rubble. According to the network, the mine is an unofficial mining site with unregulated workers, and it lacked basic safety and protective measures. The area is controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been fighting the Sudanese army for more than three years. AP ↗ Radio Tamazuj ↗

The exact death toll is not yet known, and figures vary depending on the source. Surviving miner Al-Amin Suliman told AP that 60 bodies had been pulled out by Wednesday morning. The monitoring group Kordofan Observatory says at least 70 people are dead or missing. The highest figures come from two unnamed sources who were not authorized to speak to the media. A local government official told AP that 82 bodies had been recovered and that dozens of people are still missing. An RSF source told AFP at least 82 dead and 50 injured. AP ↗ Al Jazeera ↗

Accounts also differ on when the mine collapsed. Survivors and the medical network say it happened on Tuesday evening. Three local sources cited by Reuters, the Kordofan Observatory, and the local government official who spoke to AP say it was Sunday. According to the official, one shaft collapsed first, and the collapse then spread to other, interconnected shafts. Citing witnesses, the Observatory says one survivor emerged from the mine on Tuesday and said there were still people alive underground. AP ↗ Reuters (Business Standard) ↗ Radio Tamazuj ↗

The shafts collapsed one after another

According to the Kordofan Observatory, a group of interconnected shafts collapsed, stretching for more than a kilometer through fragile, sandy soil. According to Al Jazeera, survivor Al-Amin Suliman described the shafts as having been dug so close together that each one, when it collapsed, dragged down the ones next to it. AP ↗ Al Jazeera ↗

Miners searched for those buried through the entire night using their own tools. "We do not have the machinery to lift dirt and stones and search for survivors at depths of more than 30 meters," survivor Khair al-Sayyed Jabara told AP. "There were dozens of people working in the mine." A local government official told AP that only a single forklift, owned by a private individual, is available for the search. According to the Kordofan Observatory, no specialized rescue teams have arrived at the site, and residents are trying to free people from the loose soil using simple tools. Three local sources told Reuters that the high death toll is due to the lack of safety measures and rescue equipment. AP ↗ Al Jazeera ↗ Reuters (Business Standard) ↗

The Sudan Doctors Network condemned the "negligence", which it said had seriously endangered the miners' lives. "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," it said in a statement. It is calling for the search to continue and for medical and logistical aid to reach the site, and has urged those in control of the area to put an end to unregulated mining. Al Jazeera ↗ Radio Tamazuj ↗

At least 38 miners died in the same area in 2021

Mine collapses are not uncommon in Sudan. According to the Kordofan Observatory, the al-Zara mine lies in the Fuja area northwest of al-Nuhud. It was in the village of Fuja, in al-Nuhud district, that shafts at the Darsaya mine collapsed in late December 2021, killing at least 38 people. The state-owned Sudanese Mineral Resources Company said at the time that the authorities had closed the mine as dangerous and that security forces had guarded it for a while. When they left, local miners returned to it. Reuters (Business Standard) ↗ Al Jazeera ↗

A collapse in 2023 claimed 14 lives, according to AP. This year, on July 6, at least 15 people died in an abandoned mine in the Wadi Halfa area in the north of the country, near the border with Egypt. According to the newspaper The National, the authorities had closed it years earlier for safety reasons, and people were digging there illegally. AP ↗ The National ↗

According to AFP, the war has ruined Sudan's economy, and unemployment is high. Many people without work are therefore turning to dangerous gold prospecting in abandoned mines or in areas where mining is not officially permitted, such as the area around the al-Zara mine. According to some estimates cited by The National, as many as two million people are involved in gold mining in Sudan. Die Presse ↗ The National ↗

AP filmed what work in unofficial mines looks like in May, in the Dalgo Mahas area of northern Sudan. In the footage, without commentary, miners search for gold with metal detectors, work in a shaft, and wash rock. Three of them say in Arabic that they turned to mining when farming stopped paying off due to expensive fuel, or when the war left them no other option. AP Archive ↗

Gold that pays for the war

The war between the army and the RSF began in April 2023. According to the ACLED group, it has claimed at least 59,000 lives, though humanitarian organizations warn the actual number could be many times higher. AP ↗

According to AFP, Sudan mined 70 tons of gold last year, the most in five years. Both warring parties are financed to a large extent by the gold trade. UN-appointed experts say large quantities of gold are smuggled out of the country to finance the RSF, which controls the mining areas in Darfur and Kordofan. ORF ↗ AP ↗

According to Tagesschau, the United Arab Emirates is the largest buyer of Sudanese gold. In Dubai, the metal is further processed and sold, mainly to India, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. On July 13, the European Union decided on sanctions targeting trade in gold of Sudanese origin, and Switzerland joined them starting September 10. Tagesschau ↗ Radio Dabanga ↗

How Sudanese gold reaches the world market via the Emirates, and what that means for the people who mine it, is explained by Canadian public broadcaster CBC in a six-minute English-language report from December 2025. CBC News ↗



Also read: Switzerland bans Sudanese gold from September 10. In the first nine months of 2025 it imported metal worth 27 billion francs from the Emirates, the origin of which Swissaid doubts

*Illustrative photo: a road in Kordofan in dusty weather, November 2021. Author: Aziz rudwan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.*