KADUGLI – A drone attack struck the market at the Bajun gold mine in Sudan’s South Kordofan State, damaging four gold-processing complexes but causing no reported casualties, the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company said.
The state mining company said the attack took place on Friday and caused extensive material damage to four milling complexes used in gold processing. It blamed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the strike, an attribution that could not be independently verified.
Mohamed Abdelrahim, director of environment and safety at the company, said preliminary reports showed no deaths or injuries because the attack coincided with the Friday holiday, when workers were absent from the targeted sites.
The company said it was assessing the damage with relevant authorities and would release further details once the evaluation was completed.
Bajun, an active artisanal gold-mining site in Qadir locality, was also targeted in a drone attack less than a week earlier. Local sources said a woman was injured in that strike, which they also attributed to the RSF.
The latest attack comes as drone warfare expands across the Kordofan region, which has become one of the main battlegrounds in the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF.
Drone and artillery attacks have increasingly affected towns, supply routes and civilian infrastructure across North, West and South Kordofan as both sides seek control of territory linking central Sudan with Darfur.
Gold-mining areas have also become increasingly exposed to the conflict. Artisanal mining remains an important source of income for communities across Sudan, while control of gold production and trade has taken on added significance during the war.
The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company said it had not yet completed its assessment of losses at Bajun and that the full extent of the damage remained unclear.
