Egyptian forces have rounded up around 223 people near the border with Sudan, accusing them of illegal gold mining and smuggling — the military’s tally was 87 Egyptians and 136 foreign nationals, though officials haven’t said which countries the foreigners came from. Reporting from The National suggests most were Sudanese.
The setting matters here. Southern Egypt and northern Sudan sit on top of rich gold deposits, and Egypt has been pushing major state-backed mining projects like Sukari in the same region. Just across the border, though, Sudan’s gold sector has become largely lawless thanks to its three-year civil war — by some UN estimates, over half the gold mined there gets smuggled out, and gold revenue has become a major funding source for both the Sudanese army and the rival Rapid Support Forces militia. That’s drawn tens of thousands of informal prospectors into the border region, some reportedly crossing into Egypt to dig.
In the raid, Egyptian forces seized mining equipment, vehicles, communications gear, and cash in multiple currencies. Some video circulating online shows large groups of Sudanese men being moved through the desert, and Sudanese media say many were deported rather than prosecuted. Egypt’s military framed the operation as a national-security and economic-security matter, saying it reserves the right to keep acting against threats along that frontier. Sudanese military chief Burhan responded by urging Sudanese civilians to stay away from the border and avoid stirring up tension, while also pledging Sudan would investigate the smuggling itself.
