KHARTOUM
\nAt least 72 workers were killed by airstrikes on a gold mine on the Sudan-Egypt border, a Sudanese rights group said on Sunday, after survivors described scenes of chaos in the mountainous region.
\nThe Emergency Lawyers rights organization accused the Egyptian air force of carrying out the attack. Media could not independently confirm the account and Egypt has issued no official comment.
\nThe attack on Saturday was the second this year on Jabal Al-Uqaydat, after airstrikes, reportedly by Egypt, killed 23 workers in the informal gold mining site in June. The Egyptian army did not claim the strikes but said at the time that it had conducted a \u201clarge-scale operation\u201d against illegal gold mining within its borders.
\nThe border between Sudan and Egypt is disputed, with both countries claiming the resource-rich Halayeb triangle. Cairo is however a key ally of Sudan\u2019s army, at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
\nThe attack on Saturday \u201cresulted in the deaths of 72 civilian miners, according to preliminary information, while efforts to document and verify the casualty toll are ongoing,\u201d said the Emergency Lawyers, which documents atrocities in Sudan\u2019s war.
\nTwo survivors described to media their harrowing escape from the mine. Miner Abdelaziz Youssef said a jet appeared overhead at around 8:00 am (0600 GMT) on Saturday and \u201cstruck five times, many people were killed.\u201d
\n\u201cWe ran up the mountain terrified of another strike,\u201d he told media. Another survivor, Sharaf Ali, said there were thousands of people working at the remote site when it was hit.
\n\u201cAfter the airstrike people scattered, some people came to Al-Ansary market, others went in the other direction, that\u2019s why no one knows how many exactly were killed,\u201d he said from the gold market, just south of the Halayeb triangle. Both survivors said they saw bodies on the ground as they fled, with many more feared trapped under the rubble, hours away from any urban center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KHARTOUM At least 72 workers were killed by airstrikes on a gold mine on the Sudan-Egypt border, a Sudanese rights group said on Sunday, after survivors described scenes of chaos in the mountainous region. The Emergency Lawyers rights organization accused the Egyptian air force of carrying out the attack. Media could not independently confirm the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-571869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n