A Sudanese community’s war on the “factories of death” killing the environment
Sudanese villagers are fighting gold-mining companies and the security forces that own them
For decades now, the soil of the Nuba mountains has been soaked in the blood delivered by the gunfire and explosions of a Sudanese state that wanted complete control. Now death is delivered by the rush for what the soil itself contains — gold.
The villagers of the Nuba mountains, in Sudan’s south, have begun a war with the armed forces they are familiar. But it is not about rebellion or government (directly) but the damage the unregulated pursuit of gold is doing to the environment and health.
Sent to fight rebels in South Kordofan state, the various elements of Sudan’s security apparatus have used their long presence to cement their own power and wealth, especially since Sudan lost its oil resources with the independence of South Sudan and began to increasingly rely on gold.
Everyone from the intelligence agency NISS to the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary (formerly Janjaweed militias) allegedly control mines around the towns of Talodi, Gadir and Kalogi, where they crudely extract gold by processing excavated land with mercury and cyanide.
Locals claim it pollutes water sources, kills their livestock and has caused a rise in childbirth complications over recent years.
“The situation is very fragile actually, it can explode at any time”
Over the past month, they have staged sit-ins, rallies and, in moments of fury, burned the equipment of factories that have remained open despite an order by the state governor. I wrote about the details of that sit-in and how it is inspiring protest in other Sudanese conflict areas for Middle East Eye a few weeks ago.
But more has happened since, including a false alarm when protesters thought they had achieved a victory because some of the factories had packed up.
“What we are fearing is a kind of escalating whatever is going on. We fear more atrocities will take place. Up to now, among the protesters, kids were injured,” Bushra Gamar, head of Sudanese human rights organisation HUDO told me.
“People now, they are very united and they are ready to face any kind of act from the military. So the situation is very fragile actually, it can explode at any time.”
One of the flashpoints is a mine the HUDO claims is operated by Al-Juneidi, a company reportedly owned by Hemeti, the RSF head who has positioned himself for power since Omar al-Bashir’s ousting earlier this year.
After a year when they occupied Khartoum, were accused of a massacre, were dispatched to eastern Sudan and never stopped controlling Darfur (where their Janjaweed predecessor were accused of genocide), more RSF have reportedly been dispatched to shore up their presence around Al-Juneidi’s mines.
According to HUDO, more than 200 RSF fighters turned up at the gold mines last week, attacking and arresting protesters.
The local community’s protests have now escalated, putting the issue into focus, but they have been actively clashing with the forces in charge for more than a year. They have been faced with arrests and death — 12 were reportedly killed by NISS near a gold mine near Talodi in April.
There’s a new government in Sudan, the product of a transitional set-up that shares power with the military, and it has now passed a bill that outlaws mining gold with cyanide and mercury. The issue is whether this will be implemented.
Locals have already expressed their doubt, demanding the mining companies are removed altogether. The problem, for them, is who runs many of these mines.
“The military side has the last say”
It’s not by chance that both NISS and RSF have been involved at different mines. Both security forces are accused of running mines. According to Gamar, their interest in gold mining will be the problem.
He said an issue could be that the military members of the sovereign council, which operates alongside the civilian cabinet, will try to take their own actions to resolve the stand-off in the Nuba mountains.
“These companies are owned by them,” said Gamar. “NISS they have many investment companies. Not just Talodi gold mines, they have two or three companies. It’s not a public investment. it’s not subject to any kind of auditing.”
“They have the forces, they have the power. This is the issue. Whatever kind of power, it’s on the military’s side. There is no balance of power. The military side has the last say.”
“Gold is money, gold is power”
Sudan once relied on its oil wealth. Then it lost most of it and its powerful went looking for another natural resource to exploit — they found it in gold.
Since 2010 there has been a rush to control the gold mines scattered around the country. At first, “artisanal miners” from rural areas and even across borders flocked to places like Jebel Amer in Darfur, but soon they were pushed out by the militias and security forces who saw a way to make money for themselves and embed secure their position with a government in need of resources.
Hemeti’s fellow Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal ran the Jebel Amer mines for a while but Hemeti seized them in 2017 when he arrested Hilal during what was billed a disarmament campaign run by the RSF for the government.
His Al-Juneidi company has been implicated of involvement in that enterprise, mainly by exporting gold to the UAE.
A UN estimate put the value of gold exported from Sudan to the UAE 2010–14 at $4.6bn.
Many of these gold mines — in South Kordofan, Darfur and Blue Nile state — are in conflict zones and have helped to fuel the violence by government-aligned armed forces exploiting them and in some cases rebels as well.
“Gold is money, gold is power and I think that whoever controls that gold has a lot to say in politics,” said US-based Professor Ali Dinar.
