Instability in the Sahel: how a jihadi gold rush is fuelling violence in Africa
On the side of a rural highway leading south from the city of Kaya in central Burkina Faso, Boureima Ouedraogo mixes gold ore slurry with soapy water in a rusted oil drum, then pours it down a crude metal sluice into a shallow pit. He plies a small mine just over a stubby plateau nearby with a dozen other men, some of whom are mixing clean ore with toxic mercury in blue plastic tubs.
Two months ago, Ouedraogo was forced to flee a mining site near Solhan, a village 100 miles to the east. “They wore turbans and they had guns, and 100 of them came one day riding motorbikes and shooting,” says Ouedraogo, one of the more than 1m artisanal miners who excavate half the gold in Burkina Faso, much of which ends up being refined in Dubai. “They said you guys have to leave or you’re dead, so I ran.”