The Mine’s Location, Precisely!

Manadeer Thursday, October 15, 2026, Zuhair Al-Sarraj, manazzeer@yahoo.com. It is regrettable that some Sudanese promote the Egyptian narrative and adopt everything it contains, as if the killed and wounded who fell under the bombardment were not their own kin! The Al-Uqaydat mine, which was subjected to the brutal Egyptian aggression, is located in the northern valley region of the River Nile State at latitude 21.81 degrees north—about twenty kilometers south of the 22nd parallel, the line Egypt claims as the border between the two countries and used as a justification for occupying the Halayeb and Shalateen triangle in 1995. Why would it attack an area located south of the Egyptian border, knowing its location perfectly well? Yet, some Sudanese came out repeating the Egyptian narrative, justifying the bombing on the grounds that the mine is located within Egyptian territory, ignoring (out of ignorance or intent) its true location, without asking their naive minds: if the mine were Egyptian, why did Egypt leave it for all these years for Sudanese miners to work in before Cairo suddenly remembered its sovereignty over it? With just a single look at the Egyptian military statement issued on October 12, which speaks of a 'campaign to combat illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert, and of dropping warning leaflets on what it calls 'criminal elements,' with the aim of imposing sovereignty within the borders of the Egyptian state and protecting its wealth,' without specifying the location of the raids that caused the Sudanese deaths, we are certain that Egypt is deliberately ignoring the location where the brutal aggression occurred. How did some Sudanese turn a statement that does not specify the location of the attack into a certificate of innocence for Egypt and evidence of its ownership? And let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the mine is located within Egypt, as the Egyptian narrative claims. Does that give the Egyptian army the right to bomb and kill civilians? Does a worker searching for his daily bread become a military target just for being accused of illegal mining, while Egypt knows—and everyone knows—that targeting civilians is a serious crime and may constitute a war crime according to facts and international law, regardless of whether it occurred in Sudan or Egypt? Responsibility for it does not lapse by changing the name of the land or its nationality. The Egyptian authorities are responsible for clarifying what happened, investigating the killing of civilians, and holding those responsible for the aggression accountable. As for the coup authority that takes its instructions from abroad and claims to defend dignity and sovereignty while leaving Sudanese to face bombardment, killing, and terror, it does not deserve a single word to demand anything from or even to criticize; as the saying goes: 'Hitting the dead is forbidden!' The former diplomat and American analyst specializing in African and Sudanese affairs, Cameron Hudson, posted a tweet on the X platform condemning the Egyptian aggression, saying: 'The strongest army in Africa bombed poor, unarmed civilians trying to eke out a living from the earth, and a large part of the gold they were struggling to extract would have passed through Egyptian intermediaries into the Egyptian economy. The irony is that this happens while Egypt claims to defend Sudanese interests in international forums, including the Quartet and Quintet groups, but that does not give Egypt the right to bomb Sudan and its citizens and escape punishment. In the long run, Sudan should liberate itself from Cairo's hegemony.' Hudson concluded his comment by describing what happened as 'despicable.' The foreigner condemns the Egyptian aggression while Al-Burhan remains silent, and some Sudanese repeat the Egyptian narrative like parrots and defend the brutal, treacherous attack on their own people and countrymen... What a shame! The post The Mine’s Location, Precisely! appeared first on Sudanaile.