One death confirmed as water shortage now life-threatening to miners in Sudan

According to reports from mining areas on the border triangle between Sudan, Egypt, and Libya and on the other border triangle of the Red Sea in the Northern state, and River Nile state, tens of thousands of people are at risk of dying of thirst because of lack of water resulting from the nationwide fuel shortage.

Hasan Abumajda, the civil offices spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW) told Radio Dabanga that there are 20 gold mines in these areas where more than 900,000 miners are working.

He appealed to the people of these areas to cooperate with each other and not to waste water at this particular time. He appealing to the miners to return to their home areas for the fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with their family until the crisis is resolved.

Abumajda stressed that the resolution of this crisis will only be done by overthrowing what he called “the genocidal regime”.

Miner dead

Sudan’s Interior Minister Hamid Manan announced the death of a gold miner of thirst at Nawari area in the Red Sea state on Tuesday, after a vehicle he was traveling with along with four other people on the road lost their way to Nawari.

On Wednesday in response to an urgent question before the parliament about the thirst of miners in the mining areas, he said that his ministry had received 13 reports on the thirst of miners in mining areas and after the investigation three were confirmed.

The minister said that the fuel crisis has directly affected the transportation of water transfer with tankers to the mining areas and pointed out that a barrel of water has amounted to SDG 1,000 (*$35.50) in the mining areas in North Kordofan.

He explained that some of the miners had taken refuge in the mining companies’ premises in order to obtain water.

* Based on the indicative US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan