Sudan’s wartime gold boom is creating an environmental crisis. Hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by war are fuelling an expansion of artisanal gold mining that threatens drinking water, farmland and public health in the country’s River Nile and Northern states, according to a Sudan Tribune investigation reported by Mining.com. The conflict has devastated agriculture, industry and trade, leaving informal gold prospecting among the few remaining sources of income: an estimated 2 million to 5 million people now depend on the largely unregulated sector. Miners in El-Obeidiya told the Sudan Tribune that economic desperation has left them relying on mercury mixers and cyanide processing basins despite the health and environmental dangers.
Field investigations identified rapidly expanding processing operations around El-Obeidiya, Abu Hamad and nearby seasonal valleys, where cyanide extraction basins and chemical equipment sit close to palm groves and shallow groundwater. The operations have left millions of tonnes of potentially toxic waste, locally known as karta, containing mercury and cyanide near farmland and homes. Laboratory tests of soil from Village 3 in River Nile state recorded mercury readings the report described as far above World Health Organization and US Environmental Protection Agency safety standards, although the units were not specified. Earlier academic surveys detected mercury and cyanide in 20 percent of sampled drinking water supplies north of Atbara and south of Berber, and biological samples from children aged four to 11 showed evidence of mercury exposure.
The human risk is not only chemical. An airstrike on an artisanal gold mine near the Sudan-Egypt border on October 10 killed at least 114 people, according to the Sudanese rights group Emergency Lawyers, a claim not independently verified; miners blamed Egypt, and the Egyptian military confirmed operations against illegal gold mining in the eastern desert without acknowledging the strike.
The oversight dilemma is structural. Artisanal mining accounts for about 80 percent of Sudan’s gold production, according to the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, and the country officially exported 14.7 tonnes of gold worth 1.536 billion dollars in 2025, more than 58 percent of total export revenues, according to Central Bank of Sudan data. An official from the Mineral Resources Company told the Sudan Tribune that wartime conditions had severely weakened regulatory oversight, and that although mercury and cyanide use is prohibited outside certified facilities, displacement and geography have let unauthorized processing proliferate, even as joint inspections with state governments and security forces continue.