Symbolic imageDozens of miners killed in air strike near Sudan-Egypt border
A rights group says an air strike on a Sudanese gold mine near the Egyptian border killed at least 72 miners. Egypt has not commented.
Emergency Lawyers, a Khartoum-based rights group, accuses the Egyptian military of the Saturday night strike in the North Wadi area of Jabal al-Uqaydat; the toll is unverified. Rights monitors shared images allegedly from the site showing bodies wrapped in funeral shrouds. The New York Times reports that videos showed what appeared to be Egyptian munitions at the mine, which lies hundreds of miles from the front lines of Sudan's civil war.
A similar strike in June
Another artisan gold mine in Jabal al-Uqaydat was hit by drones and artillery in June, and a number of people died. The Egyptian army said it acted "within Egyptian territory" and detained 223 people.
A border never demarcated
Al Jazeera notes that the 22nd parallel, set as the boundary in 1899, was never physically marked, and the area's gold has fed disputes. A border specialist told the outlet that Egyptian Border Guard forces operate nearby while Sudan has no military or administrative presence there.