(Reuters) : At least 72 artisanal miners were killed in an airstrike in northern Sudan on Saturday, rights monitor Emergency Lawyers said on Sunday, in the second such incident in several months.
Emergency Lawyers blamed the Egyptian air force for the strike, a claim Reuters could not immediately verify. The Egyptian military did not comment on the incident and Egypt’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Images shared on social media and by local rights groups but not verified by Reuters show dozens of bodies strewn in rubble and others wrapped in funeral shrouds, and miners describing an airstrike on the area.
Emergency Lawyers said such a cross-border attack would violate international law.
Northern Sudan has seen an influx of artisanal miners and makeshift gold mines as the country’s ongoing conflict disrupted other sources of livelihoods and gold became the key cash source for both warring parties. Experts and those in the sector say much of that gold is smuggled into Egypt.
The war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has seen an increased frequency of mass-casualty events, particularly as drone warfare becomes the primary mode of fighting.
On Friday, some 31 people were killed in a drone strike on a displacement camp in an army-controlled area of Sudan’s Blue Nile state, one of the war’s frontlines, according to the United Nations.
