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Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - KHARTOUM —The collapse of a gold mine in southern Sudan has killed at least 60 small-scale miners, two survivors told AFP on Wednesday, while many more are missing and feared dead under the rubble.
Shafts began collapsing in the Al-Zaraa mine near the town of El-Nahud in West Kordofan on Tuesday, and by the following morning 60 bodies had been retrieved.
Survivors say they do not know how many people remain trapped.
One surviving miner, Khair al-Sayyed Jabara, told AFP there had been an overnight rescue operation since the collapse, and that fellow miners were having to dig using the same rudimentary tools they use to mine.
"Everyone's working very hard to retrieve the bodies or any survivors, but it's difficult. We need heavy machinery to clear the rock and soil."
Al-Amin Suleiman, another miner who was working at the rim of Al-Zaraa on Tuesday, told AFP that "the shafts here are all close together, if one collapses, it brings down all the ones next to it".
"This is what happened here. So far, 60 bodies have been pulled out but there are people still trapped underground since yesterday. I don't think they are alive."
The three local sources, speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, attributed the high death toll at the remote site to a lack of safety procedures and rescue equipment.
Since war erupted in April 2023 between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the war efforts of both sides have been largely funded by the gold industry, in addition to foreign backers.
The conflict has devastated Sudan's already fragile economy and left much of the country out of work, pushing many into a dangerous gold rush.
Artisanal and small-scale mining, which takes place in unofficial zones or decommissioned mines, accounts for the majority of gold extracted.
Despite RSF declaring a parallel government, their governing capabilities remain limited, and people in western Sudan remain mostly reliant on aid and local community networks for survival.
Even before the war pushed nearly 20 million Sudanese into severe hunger, artisanal mining employed more than two million people, according to industry figures.
Africa’s third-largest country is one of the continent’s top gold producers, and recorded a “five-year high” of 70 tonnes of production last year, it said.
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