The mining for minerals in
Hala'ib triangle especially gold is part of the dispute between Egypt and Sudan. Actually in late 1970s or early 1980s the dispute surfaced when Sudan signed an agreement with some American or Canadian mining company to mine gold there "
despite it is disputed territory and Egypt officially believes that the triangle is considered an Egyptian territory "
It is just an irony that despite the people
there live in extreme poverty , they are surrounded by rich area of minerals above them gold mine
Financial Al Mal Daily newspaper reporter Mohamed Ragab travelled to Hala'ib and filmed there the unofficial/illegal gold mining there. He did not say the exact location but it is between the cities of Hala'ib and Shalateen. The speaker in the video who is wearing the galabiya is not a native if I may say, he seems to be of Upper Egyptian origin.
Gold mining in Hala'ib triangle
The people there extract gold from the gold veins found in that mount in the triangle for four years now. Amazingly the deal is as follows a guy comes with gold detector along with workers and a transportation vehicle and in the end the profit is divided by three.
"The government does not interfere" says the Upper Egyptian guy who owns three gold detectors. For 6 months the government aka the army , the intelligence and state security in this area used to stalk those gold diggers but they stopped now. "The best government is in Hala'ib !!" The man said with no regards to the people suffering there.
Surprisingly in the end of that short yet extremely important clip we find out that there is some Gulf mining company digging for gold there.
When it comes to the unofficial gold mining in Egypt , you will be surprised to know that no only some people in Hala'ib mine it unofficially but in other areas as well.
Last month Al Shorouk newspaper reported exclusively that there is illegal gold mining taking place in
Qena. Strangely I cannot find the report anymore in
Shorouk official newspaper but I found a cached version from the report "Thank God for Google Cache service"
According to the report the people mainly from Bedouin tribes working in illegal gold mining in the one of the mounts in an area called "Wadi El Lakeeta". When I checked its location in Google maps I found out that it is near to
Red Sea governorate. The report says that despite the governor and the government officials are denying to have any knowledge with that mine unlike what it seems.
Amazingly the report says that there are not less than 3,000 families working in gold mining in that area and in fact not less 500 young men work in one location when it comes to mining. There are illegal gold workshops working in the governorate yet the governor denies it !!
You know if I were from those people , I will use the profit from these mines to improve my village and my area as long as the centralized government in
Cairo ignores our existence.
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