Army raids gold mining site in eastern Sudan’s El Gedaref

On Thursday, more than five gold miners were injured when Sudanese army troops stormed a gold mining site in El Gedaref, and removed the miners by force.

Speaking to Radio Dabanga, miner Mohamed Fadul reported that the police of Qala El Nahal locality in El Gedaref told the thousands of local miners to leave the site of the mine near Salmeen village within two hours, after a dispute between farmers and miners erupted on Thursday.

When the miners did not meet the deadline, members of the Sudanese Armed Forces stormed the gold mine, and fired tear gas and rubber bullets to force the miners to leave the site. As a result, at least five miners were injured, two of them seriously.

Khaled Mustafa, Head of the Damage Survey Committee, told this station that 89 miners have been affected. Damage to the site is estimated at SDG 4 million ($72,550*). The miners lost their gold, gold exploration devices, and their mobile phones. Several shops burned to ashes during the raid.

* USD 1 = SDG 55.14 at the time of publishing this article. As effective foreign exchange rates can vary in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the daily US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS).

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