Tensions are rising between Egypt and Sudan—at the pubic level at least for now—after the Egyptian army bombed sites mined by hundreds of Sudanese for gold on 11 October, killing dozens of miners and wounding others.
Over 70 Sudanese artisanal miners were killed in the strikes, according to eyewitnesses who were present at the site at the time of the Egyptian strikes.
Videos filmed during and after the Egyptian aerial attacks showed the bodies of the dead victims spread out in the area as smoke billowed in the background.
Having affirmed that the strikes were carried out on the Egyptian side of the border, the Egyptian army said they were part of its campaign against "illicit mining" activities in the area.
It added in a statement on 12 October that warning leaflets were dropped to people in the area to caution against illicit mining for gold.
The strikes were the second by the Egyptian army on the Egyptian side of the border with Sudan in less than five months.
In mid-June, army fighter aircraft bombed mining sites in the border area, killing around 23 Sudanese artisanal miners. Law-enforcement personnel and army troops also rounded up hundreds of miners.
Increasing mining activities, particularly gold, Egyptian military analysts said, are part of fallout from the civil war in Sudan which has caused chaos on the shared border with Egypt.
"Criminal gangs are stepping up their activities in the border area, using the Sudanese army's preoccupation with fighting inside Sudan," Gen. Nasr Salem, the former Egyptian reconnaissance commander, told The New Arab.
"This adds more pressure on the Egyptian Armed Forces which have to solely bear the responsibility of securing the border," he added.
In its 12 October statement about the strikes, the Egyptian army said law-enforcement personnel would continue to impose full sovereignty within Egypt's boundaries to protect its capabilities and national wealth.
Public outrage
The strike triggered a wave of anger inside Sudan, raising questions about its possible effects on relations between Cairo and Khartoum in the near future.
Reaction from the Sudanese in the immediate aftermath of the attacks was mainly confined to social media, but it then seeped into the streets.
On 12 October, a Sudanese gunman opened fire on Egyptian truck drivers south of Khartoum, killing two and leaving a third injured.
A day later, protests were reported in a number of Sudanese cities, especially in Nyala, the capital of the state of Southern Darfur in south-western Sudan.
Photos circulating on social media showed the demonstrators carrying the Sudanese flag and placards criticising alleged silence by Sudan's ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC).
Most of the anger on the Sudanese side was driven by belief that the strikes were carried out on the Sudanese, not the Egyptian, side of the border.
This was why some people called on the STC to issue an official condemnation of the attacks and launch an enquiry into them.
Cairo moves to contain crisis
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said it closely followed the killing of the two Egyptian truck drivers, describing the event as "sorrowful".
The Egyptian ambassador in Khartoum, who had just submitted his credentials to TSC Head Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan only a day earlier, had also checked on the condition of the wounded victim who was hospitalized at a hospital in the Sudanese capital.
The statement of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on the shootout came only a day after the Egyptian and Sudanese foreign ministers talked on the phone.
During the call, each of the two top diplomats expressed respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the other's country, according to a statement by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
Concern over rising anti-Egypt sentiments in Sudan reverberated, meanwhile, quickly across Egyptian social media sites where users expressed support for actions taken by the Egyptian army to defend national borders against intrusions by Sudanese artisanal miners.
Egypt, analysts argue, has been solely bearing the brunt of securing its shared border with Sudan since the outbreak of the Sudanese civil war in April 2023.
Gen. Salem said illicit mining was only a small detail in the larger picture of a long list of other border infringements from the Sudanese side, including the smuggling of subsidized Egyptian goods into Sudan and the trafficking of Sudanese persons into Egypt.
The war has also caused around 1.5 million Sudanese to cross the border into Egypt for refuge, adding to the economically-struggling northern neighbouring country's economic strains.
RSF financial engine
The Transitional Sovereignty Council has mourned the death of the artisanal miners and ordered the formation of a panel to investigate the incident, in an apparent attempt to appease an angry Sudanese public.
However, most condemnation for the strikes came from the backers of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary militia battling the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for control over Sudan.
This probably highlights links between the militia and rampant illicit mining activities and gold smuggling in the border area between Egypt and Sudan, Sudanese analysts said.
Sudanese political analyst Salah Khalil described gold mining and smuggling as major "financial lifelines" for the RSF.
"The militia uses revenues from mining and smuggling operations to bankroll its military activities and war against the SAF," Kalil told TNA.
He added that the paramilitary group also uses the same revenues in the purchase of arms from other countries.
Nyala is known to be a stronghold of the RSF. On the same day of the Egyptian airstrikes against Sudanese artisanal miners, the Sudan Founding Alliance, an organization established by the RSF in February 2025, claimed that the Egyptian strikes were staged in North Al-Wadi, a mountainous gold-mining region in the far northeast of Sudan's Red Sea State.
It slammed Egypt for allegedly violating Sudanese sovereignty and accused it of wanting to wrest Sudan's resources.
According to international investigative organization Global Witness in 2019, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) has used front companies and banks based in Sudan and the United Arab Emirates to capture a large part of Sudan's gold industry.
Beyond gold
Several Egyptian and Sudanese analysts link the war in Sudan to a larger struggle redrawing the regional map and control over vital maritime chokepoints and ports.
The crackdown on gold mining and smuggling would deal a painful blow to the RSF and consequently attempts by the militia's regional backers to defeat the SAF and control Sudan, Sudanese analysts said.
Nevertheless, the same measure would be far from enough to defeat the militia once and for all, they added.
Khalil called for parallel measures to gradually weaken the militia, including cutting off support from Sudan's neighbouring countries, especially Libya, Chad and Ethiopia.
"Severing these lifelines will leave the militia high and dry and contribute to its defeat over time," he said.