Egypt attacks the border with Sudan. Dozens killed over gold and oil

On Sunday morning, a few hours before Egyptian aircraft bombed northern Sudan, killing dozens of people, the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Mohieldin Salim, had attended a grand official ceremony in the capital, Khartoum, to welcome the new Egyptian ambassador to the country. Handshakes and ceremonial pleasantries, however, had already become a distant memory by nightfall, when the air raid began. The border between the two countries was targeted for hours, and the provisional death toll ranges between 72 and 200, the majority of whom were workers in the illegal mines of Shamal al Waladi. These are desperate people, often fleeing war zones such as Darfur, who, in order to survive, find work in the mines, where living conditions and safety are precarious. The gold extracted from these holes dug into the ground with rusty spades by miners in sandals funds both factions that have been waging war in Sudan for years; it serves as a strategic reserve for the Egyptian regime’s extravagant spending in Cairo; and it is one of the main resources coveted by the emirs of Abu Dhabi. In the background lie two distinct conflicts: one between the capital, Khartoum, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the other – which has lain dormant for decades – between Egypt and Sudan over a disputed territory known as the ‘Halaib Triangle’.

In 1899, during the colonial era, a treaty between the British and the Egyptians established the border with Sudan along the 22nd parallel north, assigning the ‘Halaib Triangle’ to Egypt. Matters were complicated by a change imposed – again by the United Kingdom – just three years later. In 1902, the British drew a new administrative boundary between the two territories, assigning to Egypt a portion of land known as Bir Tawil and to Sudan the ‘Halaib Triangle’. Following Khartoum’s independence in 1956, Egypt has regarded Halaib as an integral part of the country: it organises elections, ensures security, and manages telecommunications and the strategic port of Halaib on the Red Sea. But the reason this 20,000-square-kilometre territory is still being discussed today is that, in addition to its gold and manganese mines, there is a great deal of oil in the sea. In 1993, the Sudanese decided to grant exploration rights to the Canadian company International Petroleum Inc. without consulting the Egyptians. Tensions escalated until the failed terrorist attack on the then-dictator Hosni Mubarak, which Cairo claimed was orchestrated by Sudan. In 2018, it was Egypt’s turn to put out to tender the exploration of eight different extraction zones in the Red Sea without consulting Khartoum.

The issue of sovereignty over the ‘Halaib Triangle’ continues today and overlaps with the major civil war in Sudan, fought with weapons purchased through the gold trade. The Geopolitical Intelligence Services research centre has identified a significant shift in the routes taken by gold mined in northern Sudan, which is used to finance both the Khartoum Armed Forces and the RSF rebels. Both official and informal trade passes overland through Egypt, which uses the gold to bolster the country’s gold reserves, before travelling on to the United Arab Emirates, where the metal is refined and distributed to global markets. In fact, according to the British intelligence firm Grey Dynamics, a secret agreement has been struck between Egypt and the UAE: “Emirati companies have secured mining concessions and Egypt has guaranteed security and stability, cooperating in return with mining operations”. The tacit understanding between Cairo and Abu Dhabi, forged in the name of gold, acts as a counterbalance to the rivalry between the two countries over the civil war, in which Egypt backs Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Transitional Council, whilst the Emirates support Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the RSF. This appears to be a contradiction, yet the distinction between friends and enemies in the Horn of Africa simply follows the logic of resource control, often at the cost of civilian lives.