The official spokesman of the Armed Forces, Colonel (Staff) Ahmed Otman Ali, announced at a press conference on the evening of Thursday 5 November 2026 the results of the Armed Forces’ campaign against illegal gold prospecting in the Eastern Desert. He said the campaign led to the detention of 691 people, including 151 Egyptians and 540 foreigners, and that 6,614 people surrendered at closure points, and he announced that the fourth phase of the campaign would begin on Saturday 7 November, calling on those involved in prospecting to surrender before that date.
The military spokesman announced the killing of two officers in clashes in the Eastern Desert with people engaged in illegal prospecting, Colonel Ahmed Samir, chief of staff of the Southern Region Border Guard, and Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Gouda, head of operations of a border guard battalion, without specifying the date of the clash. The items seized, according to the press conference statement, included 34 weapons, 6,307 rounds of ammunition, 317 vehicles, 15 cyanide basins and 860 tonnes of gold-bearing ore.
The spokesman said the Armed Forces did not target civilians, and that they carried out pre-emptive strikes to cut the supply of weapons and ammunition arriving across the border, stressing that the operations take place inside Egypt’s borders and in coordination with the Sudanese side.
The campaign began last June, and its third phase was carried out between 12 and 29 October. The Sudanese group Emergency Lawyers said in October that at least 72 mining workers were killed in an air strike in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border, and held the Egyptian air force responsible, and the Egyptian army did not comment on the strike at the time.
Photo: Leon petrosyan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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