Eighty-two dead in a West Kordofan gold mine after shafts give way

By Wednesday afternoon rescuers at the al-Zaraa gold mine near al-Nuhud in West Kordofan had brought out 82 bodies. Suleiman Abu Hmeida of the Emergency Response Rooms, a volunteer network that tracks the war and helps civilians, gave that number to the Associated Press. A local administrator working under the Rapid Support Forces, which holds the state, gave the same count to AFP and added about 50 wounded and an unknown number still below ground.

The collapse started in one shaft and ran through the shafts beside it. Miner Al-Amin Suleiman, who was at the rim on Tuesday, described the layout in one line: "The shafts here are all close together. If one collapses, it brings down all the ones next to it." Khair al-Sayyed Jabara, who lived through the night, said the search used the same hand tools the crews use to take gold out. "Everyone's working very hard to retrieve the bodies or any survivors, but it's difficult." By dawn they had 60 bodies. Twenty-two more came out on Wednesday. Suleiman did not think the people still underground were alive.

West Kordofan has been under RSF control through a war that began in April 2023. Heavy rescue gear is scarce. A local official said a single privately owned forklift was available. The Kordofan Observatory said no specialised team had arrived and that residents were digging in loose sand. The RSF source who spoke to AFP asked not to be named because he was not authorised to talk for the group's parallel administration.

Al-Zaraa is an artisanal pit, not a licensed industrial mine. Since the war closed ordinary jobs, young men have moved into unregulated shafts across the gold belt. Gold pays both sides of the conflict. Sudanese officials and mining sources say most of the metal leaves the country through the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi denies that it arms the RSF. The mine collapse does not prove that route. It does show what the rush looks like at the face: packed shafts, no alarms, no plan for a fall, one forklift.

Informal gold deaths are not new in Sudan. What is new is the combination of wartime displacement, a collapsed inspectorate and a commodity that funds the same armed groups that would have to police the pits. The Emergency Response Rooms exist because the state that used to count bodies is split. Their figure of 82 is the best public number as of Wednesday night. It will move if the sand gives up more men.

There has been no statement of any weight from the army government in Port Sudan, which does not control the ground. There has been no offer of equipment from outside. The survivors asked for machines. Machines would have to cross a front line to reach al-Nuhud. Until they do, the count is a function of hands, shovels and heat.

Jabara's sentence is the one that should stay on the record. The people digging for the dead are the people who were digging for gold the day before, with the same tools, in the same holes. That is the industry. That is the war economy. That is why 82 is a floor.