Kedougou, Senegal — The quickest method to separate gold from rock, Sadio Camara says, is with a drop of mercury. She empties a dime-sized packet of the silvery liquid right into a plastic bucket of muddy sediment outdoors her dwelling in southeastern Senegal. With naked fingers and no masks, she swirls the combination as her kids look on.
“I do know mercury isn’t good on your well being — that’s why I don’t drink the water it comes into contact with,” she stated. “I solely course of small quantities of gold, so there’s no hazard.”
However even small-scale publicity can carry severe dangers.
Throughout West Africa, mercury — a potent neurotoxin — stays the dominant technique for extracting gold from ore within the area’s booming casual mining sector, a lot of it unlawful and unregulated. In Senegal’s gold-rich Kedougou area, girls like Camara use the steel often, usually with out protecting gloves and masks, to make a residing.
Mercury publicity may cause irreversible mind harm, developmental delays, tremors and lack of imaginative and prescient, listening to and coordination. As soon as launched, it spreads simply via air, water and soil. Notably after heavy rains, it contaminates rivers, poisons fish and accumulates up the meals chain.
A 2018 Duke College-led examine discovered mercury ranges in soils, sediments and water close to artisanal gold mining villages in southeastern Senegal that exceeded security thresholds set by the World Well being Group and U.S. Environmental Safety Company by 10 to 100 occasions.
In artisanal mining, mercury is prized for its means to bind rapidly and simply to gold. Miners combine the liquid steel into crushed ore, and the combination is then heated — usually over open flames — to evaporate the mercury and depart behind a lump of gold. The method is affordable, efficient and harmful.
“If it damage straight away, like a knife, folks would cease. However the problem is that it takes years for the risks to manifest,” stated Doudou Dramé, president of the Observatoire Territoriale du Secteur Extractif, a company that advocates for safer situations for gold miners in Kedougou. “Individuals are dumping it instantly into the river. They’re burning it within the open, releasing poisonous smoke into the air. It’s extraordinarily harmful.”
Artisanal and small-scale gold mining is the biggest world supply of mercury emissions, much more than the burning of coal, based on the UN Surroundings Programme. In Senegal alone, artisanal mines are estimated to launch between 12 and 16 metric tons of mercury every year.
“Kedougou has wealthy land — very wealthy land,” Dramé stated. “Now mercury is in every single place. Our animals eat it, and it comes again to us. Even the soil is now not fertile.”
Alongside the muddy banks of a rust-colored pond, dozens of ladies wade knee-deep as they rinse piles of sediment in quest of gold. Youngsters dart between mounds of earth whereas the runoff swimming pools round their ft. With little entry to wash water, many ladies spend lengthy hours in native waterways to work, bathe their kids, wash garments and clear dishes.
“Girls are way more uncovered than males,” stated Modou Goumbala, the monitoring and analysis supervisor at La Lumiere, an NGO that helps neighborhood improvement in southeastern Senegal.
That publicity may be particularly harmful for pregnant and nursing girls. Mercury can cross the placenta, placing fetuses liable to developmental delays and delivery defects. Infants can also soak up the toxin via contaminated breast milk.
Inside her kitchen hut not removed from the stream, Camara heats a nugget of mercury-laced sediment with a steel spoon over an open flame. The poisonous steel evaporates and leaves behind a kernel of gold. There’s no masks, no gloves — simply the uncooked supplies and her naked fingers. Her kids stand only a few ft away, watching and respiration the fumes.
Camara stated she doesn’t normally deal with the burning herself; that job is often left to males. However she and different girls often combine and form the mercury amalgam with no safety. Certainly one of her kids suffers from frequent stomachaches, although she hasn’t seen some other signs. Nonetheless, the dangers loom.
“The simplest method to earn cash at present is gold mining,” Camara stated. “Subsistence agriculture won’t present you adequate for meals or different wants.”
In Senegal, gold processors like Camara usually course of between 5 and 10 grams of gold per 30 days, incomes the equal of $370 to $745 — greater than double the nationwide common wage of about $200.
Senegal ratified the Minamata Conference on Mercury in 2016, pledging to cut back mercury use and air pollution. However the substance stays extensively accessible. A lot of the nation’s provide comes from Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, with smaller quantities smuggled from dental clinics in Dakar, based on a 2022 report by the Institute for Safety Research.
In 2020, the federal government promised to construct 400 mercury-free gold processing items. To this point, just one has been constructed — in Bantaco, about 15 miles from Camara’s dwelling. The ability makes use of gravity to separate gold from ore, eliminating the necessity for mercury by counting on sluices and shaking tables.
Throughout a latest go to, the rusting slab of steel sat unused beneath a corrugated roof.
“Folks used it for some time, however then they stopped, as a result of one single unit can’t cowl a whole neighborhood,” Goumbala stated. “Naturally, those that have been close by might use it. However for individuals who are very distant, they’ll’t afford to move the ore all the way in which, course of it after which return. It’s further work. That’s an issue.”
Camara stated she tried the unit, however along with being distant, it was much less efficient at isolating gold – some was misplaced within the course of.
Repeated efforts to schedule an interview with Senegal’s director of artisanal and small-scale mining have been unsuccessful. The director later stated the division had been suspended. He didn’t present a cause.
Senegal swore in a brand new president in 2024, however residents say the issues stay.
“There’s a brand new administration in place, however guarantees are nonetheless simply guarantees,” Goumbala stated. He believes the shortage of progress is because of restricted funding.
In an effort to curb air pollution, authorities briefly suspended mining inside 500 meters (1,640 ft)of the Faleme River, which cuts via Senegal’s gold belt and varieties a part of the border with Mali.
However enforcement is weak as officers battle to stem the inflow of casual miners, lots of whom arrive from neighboring nations. Critics say the measure barely scratches the floor of the issue.
“The answer is to put in the gold processing items throughout the communities — a minimum of one per village,” Goumbala stated.
Even so, he acknowledged the challenges: The machines are costly, troublesome to keep up and require substitute components which can be solely accessible overseas.
There’s additionally resistance amongst miners, who say mercury is extra environment friendly and worthwhile.
“We have to persuade communities that even when they make more cash utilizing mercury, in the long run, they’ll spend that revenue on treating diseases attributable to it,” Goumbala stated. “The long-term penalties are far worse.”
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Observe Annika Hammerschlag On Instagram @Ahammergram.
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