Report

Guinea: near Kouroussa, miners take all the risks for gold

Audio 01:25

Lanfia Kourouma, gold digger near Kouroussa, Guinea.

© M. Raynal/RFI

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

Accidents have been linked in recent weeks in several gold mines in Guinea.

On March 1, more than a dozen people died in the collapse of a gallery in the Kounsitel area, in the north of the country.

RFI was able to visit an artisanal gold panning site near Kouroussa, further east, where workers take all the risks to bring the precious material to the surface.

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With our special correspondent in Kouroussa,

Matthias Raynal

The ground is an immense Swiss cheese.

The men rush in to draw baskets filled with earth which they then pass through a metal detector. 

We came here to win gold.

There's gold here, but it's deep.

 In depth, more than ten meters.

Lanfia Kourouma is a gold miner.

Every nook and cranny of his skin and clothes are covered in white dust.

It's been six or seven years since there has been a fatal accident.

The latest was caused by alcohol.

A hole had started to become dangerous.

A man remained on the site after work.

He was drunk.

He saw that there was some gold and he wanted to go down.

He stayed there, the one who accompanied him lost his leg.

»   

Lanfia Kourouma shows us a well whose bottom cannot be seen.

We go down like that to the bottom.

Cavities in the wall form an improvised staircase.

A crack appeared.

As you see, there is a trace…

Before, Lanfia Kourouma was a driver.

He would like to be able to return to this job and stop gold panning.

Too difficult, too dangerous, he says, but it's his last hope for survival today.

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  • Guinea