At least 114 young Sudanese miners died in a suspected Egyptian airstrike, as war-ravaged youth risk everything for gold near the border.
Africa's youth are paying the price of Sudan's collapse. On Saturday 10 October, an airstrike hit an artisanal goldmine in the country's North Valley, near the Egyptian border. The Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers says at least 114 people were killed, many of them young men who went underground to survive.
When Ammar arrived at the scene, the miners had already launched their own rescue effort. Torches were still strapped to their heads, and their digging tools lay abandoned. Men who had been working the earth minutes earlier were now trying to pull their friends and neighbours from the aftermath.
The strike has been blamed on Egypt, widely seen as the most likely suspect, and it has sparked anger toward Cairo. The claim is still suspected rather than confirmed, but the fury on the ground is real. Many in Sudan are asking why people scraping out a living were targeted.
The mine was packed with young Sudanese because three years of civil war have wrecked the economy and the job market. Artisanal gold mining became a lifeline for a generation with few options, and it has now turned into a place of mass grief. The strike is another reminder of the cost young Africans bear when conflict takes everything but their will to survive.
