KEDOUGOU, Senegal — The quickest option 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 palms and no masks, she swirls the combination as her youngsters look on.
“I do know mercury isn’t good in your well being — that’s why I don’t drink the water it comes into contact with,” she mentioned. “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 metallic often, usually with out protecting gloves and masks, to make a residing.
Mercury publicity may cause irreversible mind injury, developmental delays, tremors and lack of imaginative and prescient, listening to and coordination. As soon as launched, it spreads simply by means of 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 capability to bind rapidly and simply to gold. Miners combine the liquid metallic into crushed ore, and the combination is then heated — usually over open flames — to evaporate the mercury and go away 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 situation is that it takes years for the risks to manifest,” mentioned Doudou Dramé, president of the Observatoire Territoriale du Secteur Extractif, a company that advocates for safer circumstances for gold miners in Kedougou. “Persons are dumping it immediately 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 most important world supply of mercury emissions, much more than the burning of coal, in accordance with the UN Surroundings Programme. In Senegal alone, artisanal mines are estimated to launch between 12 and 16 metric tons of mercury annually.
“Kedougou has wealthy land — very wealthy land,” Dramé mentioned. “Now mercury is in every single place. Our animals devour 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 the hunt for 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 youngsters, wash garments and clear dishes.
“Ladies are way more uncovered than males,” mentioned Modou Goumbala, the monitoring and analysis supervisor at La Lumiere, an NGO that helps neighborhood improvement in southeastern Senegal.
That publicity might be particularly harmful for pregnant and nursing girls. Mercury can cross the placenta, placing fetuses prone to developmental delays and delivery defects. Infants may additionally take in the toxin by means of contaminated breast milk.
Inside her kitchen hut not removed from the stream, Camara heats a nugget of mercury-laced sediment with a metallic spoon over an open flame. The poisonous metallic evaporates and leaves behind a kernel of gold. There’s no masks, no gloves — simply the uncooked supplies and her naked palms. Her youngsters stand just some ft away, watching and respiration the fumes.
Camara mentioned she doesn’t normally deal with the burning herself; that activity is usually left to males. However she and different girls often combine and form the mercury amalgam with no safety. One among her youngsters suffers from frequent stomachaches, although she hasn’t seen another signs. Nonetheless, the dangers loom.
“The best option to earn cash as we speak is gold mining,” Camara mentioned. “Subsistence agriculture is not going to present you sufficient for meals or different wants.”
In Senegal, gold processors like Camara usually course of between 5 and 10 grams of gold per thirty 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 broadly accessible. Many of the nation’s provide comes from Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana, with smaller quantities smuggled from dental clinics in Dakar, in accordance with a 2022 report by the Institute for Safety Research.
In 2020, the federal government promised to construct 400 mercury-free gold processing items. Up to now, 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 metallic sat unused beneath a corrugated roof.
“Individuals used it for some time, however then they stopped, as a result of one single unit can’t cowl a complete neighborhood,” Goumbala mentioned. “Naturally, those that had been close by may use it. However for individuals who are very distant, they will’t afford to move the ore all the best way, course of it after which return. It’s additional work. That’s an issue.”
Camara mentioned 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 had been unsuccessful. The director later mentioned 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 mentioned. He believes the dearth of progress is because of restricted funding.
In an effort to curb air pollution, authorities quickly suspended mining inside 500 meters (1,640 ft)of the Faleme River, which cuts by means of Senegal’s gold belt and kinds a part of the border with Mali.
However enforcement is weak as officers battle to stem the inflow of casual miners, a lot 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 inside the communities — not less than one per village,” Goumbala mentioned.
Even so, he acknowledged the challenges: The machines are costly, troublesome to keep up and require alternative components which might be solely out there 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, ultimately, they’ll spend that revenue on treating diseases attributable to it,” Goumbala mentioned. “The long-term penalties are far worse.”
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Comply with Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram.
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