CAIRO – In a major security crackdown along Egypt’s southern border with Sudan, Egyptian security forces have apprehended hundreds of people, including dozens of foreign nationals, on allegations of involvement in unauthorized gold mining and cross-border smuggling, military officials confirmed in a public statement released Monday.
Egypt’s underdeveloped southern frontier holds some of the country’s most significant untapped gold reserves, and in recent years the Egyptian government has prioritized expanding formal, large-scale mining activity in the region. Flagship projects include the massive Sukari gold mine, one of the largest industrial mining operations in North Africa, which is central to Cairo’s plans to boost mineral exports and drive economic growth.
According to the official military communique, the detained population is made up of 87 Egyptian citizens and 136 foreign nationals. The statement did not disclose the nationalities of the foreign detainees. Alongside the arrests, security forces seized a large cache of heavy machinery and specialized mining equipment that authorities confirmed was being used to carry out unlicensed extraction operations in the border zone.
This cross-border illicit mining trade has been fueled dramatically by the ongoing three-year civil war in neighboring Sudan, which shares a long, porous border with Egypt’s southern gold-bearing region. Sudan is also endowed with extensive gold deposits, but the collapse of state authority amid ongoing conflict between Sudan’s formal military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left most of the country’s mining sector completely unregulated.
A 2024 United Nations Panel of Experts report estimates that more than half of all gold extracted in Sudan is illegally smuggled out of the country annually, and gold exports account for roughly 70% of Sudan’s total state revenue when formally recorded. For warring factions, unregulated gold smuggling has become a critical source of funding: the RSF and Sudanese military have both smuggled thousands of tons of gold from conflict-affected regions in Darfur and Kordofan to bankroll their military operations, turning the illicit gold trade into a core driver of the continuing war.
Unverified video footage circulated on social media platforms in recent days showed hundreds of people gathered at a formal border crossing between the two countries, with Sudanese local media outlets reporting that the group consists of miners detained by Egyptian authorities who are being processed for expulsion back to Sudan.
Egyptian military officials noted that a small number of suspected illegal miners who turned themselves in to security forces have already been repatriated to their home countries, but offered no additional details on the breakdown of nationalities among either the detained or expelled groups. In a closing warning, the Egyptian military emphasized that it “retains all available options to deal with all threats” to the country’s border security and legitimate mining sector, signaling that additional crackdowns on unauthorized activity may be underway in the coming weeks.