"More dangerous than war with the enemy"... With these words, Ahmed Habib, a member of the Egyptian Jewelers Association and an engineer, described the battles Egypt is waging against illegal gold prospectors in the southern governorates, known as "al-Dahaba" (the gold diggers), who have returned to the spotlight again.

The Egyptian Armed Forces recently announced details of the discovery of large numbers of Egyptians and Africans who are randomly prospecting for gold in mountainous areas without any coordination with state agencies, especially in areas extending from al-Qusayr and Marsa Alam to the southern borders.

These areas are currently witnessing, from the Red Sea Governorate in the east to Halayeb and Shalateen in the south, and the adjacent mountainous areas, an intense deployment of fixed and mobile security checkpoints to catch "al-Dahaba", while security agencies continue their arrest operations, which have yielded a number of surprises.

Ahmed Habib said in exclusive statements to Sky News Arabia that the state's battle against "al-Dahaba" is no less important than military battles, because they are destroying all of Egypt's efforts to attract global companies to invest in the gold sector, and they smuggle everything they find abroad.

He added: 'These groups operate outside the law and illegally; their members extract raw gold away from the eyes of state agencies, which puts the Egyptian government in the face of dangers on multiple levels—environmental, economic, and security—besides the risks of smuggling Africans and gold.'

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Cross-border smuggling routes

The member of the Egyptian Jewelers Association said that the profession of al-Dahaba is closely linked to cross-border smuggling routes; the matter is not limited to smuggling quantities of gold discovered in illegal smuggling areas, but also extends to smuggling African nationals to participate in prospecting.

He continued: 'The danger of al-Dahaba extends to threatening the state's development and investment plans, as the depletion of wealth in Egypt's mountains deprives other sectors of generating productive projects that could later produce economic returns, in addition to a large number of job opportunities, all of which benefit specific gangs.'

Habib praised the role of the Armed Forces and the Egyptian Ministry of Interior in confronting these organized gangs, which have come to control entire mountainous areas and use people smuggled from neighboring countries for guarding and prospecting, under the impression that they represent a parallel shadow government.

For his part, Mahmoud Othman, the inspector of mines in Marsa Alam at the Mineral Resources and Mining Industries Authority and a geologist, said that practitioners of the al-Dahaba profession prospect for raw gold outside the law, which directly affects the country's security and economy, in addition to leaving serious environmental impacts.

He pointed out, in his remarks to Sky News Arabia, that random prospecting operations disfigure mining areas and affect their geological nature, especially since these areas are often of a special nature—they are rugged mountainous or desert terrain, making it very difficult to monitor and follow up on them.

He added: 'These operations deprive the state of benefiting from its resources at a time when the government is working to attract more global investments in the mining sector, especially gold, and thus they waste significant investment opportunities and affect the confidence of major companies in the Egyptian mining sector.'

Battles and Mass Killings

A security source at the Egyptian Ministry of Interior revealed the evolution of al-Dahaba operations from prospecting to crime, as the mountainous area of Umm al-Huwaytat, south of the city of Safaga in the Red Sea, witnessed fierce battles between two groups of prospectors last May, in which firearms were used.

He indicated, in his statements to Sky News Arabia, that these battles resulted in the deaths of 8 people, including 5 from the 'Western Ashraf' clan, while security forces arrested those who fired at the prospectors, noting that the dispute was over prospecting priority in the area.

The security source confirmed that the profession of 'al-Dahaba' reveals the existence of a criminal system with its own interests and rules, which places it currently under the watch of security agencies and the armed forces, who are monitoring all movements and besieging these groups, because the activity is linked to numerous crimes.

He added: 'There are security crimes including illegal prospecting, smuggling of humans and gold together, as well as possession of unlicensed weapons and battles that have claimed lives, in addition to economic crimes, the most important of which are disrupting investments and exploiting resources outside the law.'

He noted that al-Dahaba are also spread in the mountainous areas of Aswan Governorate, where they have turned into organized gangs that enlist some arrivals from African countries, while simultaneously trying to win over young people from local families and tribes to ensure they are not reported by these families.

It is noted that the residents of Aswan Governorate are facing a fuel shortage crisis due to 'al-Dahaba' gangs, as they obtain huge quantities of diesel and gas oil, in addition to butane gas cylinders and other petroleum derivatives, to operate gold mills and their vehicles in the mountains.