Sudan security beat suspected goldmine protester

People in the north of Sudan continue their actions against gold mining activities. A man and his son were seriously injured by members of the security apparatus in Sudan's Northern state on Monday, who suspected them of impeding the power supply to one of the factories.

A witness reported that the incident occurred when Mohamed Daoud Badr and his son Waleed went to inspect the electricity station in El Sawarda after a power outage on Monday at 4am. Upon approaching the station several members of the security service attacked him without warning. They also beat Waleed.

A spokesman for a local committee, Ahmed Hassan, told this station that Daoud Badr was severely injured in his right hand and taken to Dongola hospital. Waleed, wounded in the chest, is in Abri hospital.

The residents of El Sawarda have prevented authorities from connecting electricity to a factory that extracts gold in the area. They claimed the factory makes use of cyanide which is harmful to humans and animals.

Organised groups of locals set a deadline for the local government to dismantle the factory and the factory workers to leave the area before this Saturday.

Spokesman Hassan added that the people of six villages have put up a tent near the factory site on Sunday, from where they announce their demands for the dismantlement of the factory. Since Monday they have added the prosecution of a security officer who allegedly assaulted Daoud Badr and his son to their list of demands.

Early March, an interruption to the oxygen supply in a deep gold mining shaft in Sudan’s Northern State left four people dead and two more on respirators in hospital.

Detention

There have been protests and outcries across Sudan's mining areas to ban the use of toxic chemicals such as mercury and cyanide for gold extraction. Police in Sodari in North Kordofan detained a member of the central council of the Sudanese Congress Party and a member of the environmental committee, Tahani Mohamed Shouna, for nine hours before releasing her late Sunday night.

Police held Shouna after demonstrations by locals against a gold-mining factory using the harmful cyanide. The protesters handed a memorandum to the Commissioner of Sodari demanding closure of the gold cyanidation site in the locality within 72 hours. They fear pollution of the water sources in the neighbourhood.