Exiguous-scale gold miners in Senegal use mercury despite health risks

There are hundreds of hopeful gold miners in the village of Bantako, deep in the south-east of Senegal.

In the past twenty years, it has turn into one in all the hotspots for prospectors in the distance, hoping to find a speck of gold.

Because of geopolitical tensions and the unrest surrounding US President Donald Trump’s trade policy, the gold worth has risen to file highs.

However despite the skyrocketing worth, these miners are no longer getting correctly off, in most cases being paid most efficient a section of the world market worth by traders.

Prospector Amadou Diallo, says lifestyles is a probability.

“It’s no longer that deep, . About 10 or 15 metres. Wherever we’re, we own now to work anyway. It be well-known to take hang of your opportunities,” he says.

However gold extraction in the distance is in keeping with a unsafe train.  Miners are poisoning the land by using mercury to bind the dinky gold pieces collectively.

After it has bonded to the pieces, its taken to a dealer who burns the mercury off with a blowtorch. What remains is a shiny lump of gold.

The environmental impact has been big.

Farmer and environmental activist, Doudou Drama, says they are able to no longer develop vegetation because the soil is contaminated.

“It’s genuinely a gigantic disappointment for me to gaze the bushes die. Mercury is awfully unsafe product. It poisons the soil. It poisons the air. And it will possibly possibly cause lung diseases and deformities in infants.”

Despite the health considerations, so long as there is no right replacement to gold extraction, the miners articulate they are able to also no longer finish using it.

The Senegalese authorities has been trying for years to ban the use of mercury, without success.