Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has ordered an inquiry into an October 10 airstrike on gold-mining camps near Egypt that reportedly killed scores, as death tolls differ and responsibility remains disputed.
The committee will include prosecutors and judicial and security officials, and is tasked with establishing what happened and reporting its findings, Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council said. The strike hit the mountainous Jabal al-Uqaydat mining area in Red Sea State, near a border region claimed in part by both countries. Emergency Lawyers blamed Egyptian aircraft and reported 72 deaths; the Sudan Doctors Network gave a lower toll of 13 dead and 28 injured, while later eyewitness accounts cited by Sudan Tribune put the toll at about 200.
Those figures have not been independently reconciled, and the attack itself has not been independently verified. Egypt’s military announced an operation against illegal gold mining near the Sudanese border but did not directly address the allegation that its aircraft carried out the strike; Egypt’s ambassador later expressed regret over the casualties and said the two governments would work to establish the facts. On October 14, Darfur governor Minni Minawi urged Sudan and Egypt to share their investigation findings with the public and victims’ families.
The inquiry follows another reported attack on miners in the area in June, after which Sudan had also promised an investigation.