By: Geoffrey Buta, Kenyasi. Brong Ahafo Region.
Underground gold deposits in the soils of Kenyasi in the
Asutifi South district in the Brong Ahafo Region have attracted hundreds of
young men looking to make a living from illegal mining also known as Galamsey.
Accidents are common, Conditions are tough and dangerous.
Many youth have lost their lives due to this bad practice where mine sites collapsed
on them.
The ore is hacked and shoveled from a dark very warm pits
and tunnels before being transported to another site where the gold is
extracted, often with the unregulated use of highly toxic mercury.
Miners are forced to rest on Tuesdays which is a special day
for the river gods, where mining, fishing and farming activities is an abomination.
Some women with their babies engage in the same physical
labour as men – using long chisel and sledgehammers to break rocks into stones,
sorting them out, scooping, and hauling in buckets and bags of gravel on their
head.
Hundreds work here, which seems like a whole community on
its own. With vendors selling pork meat, water, fufu, banku, alcoholic and soft
drinks, carpenters making tools, and motorbike-taxi drivers transporting the
workers.
Many of the miners are migrants from the three Northern
Region of Ghana, who are seen as the hardest working among others.
Some miners take a break in a complex of hand-dug tunnels
and caves in the rock during the night, whiles
Despite the risks involved in working here, the youth are
rather determine to survival and provide for their families due to the massive youth unemployment and extreme
poverty.
God have given us natural resource and strength to work, we
cannot depend on the government to provide are need for us, said a miner.
Sometimes is scary, but we have no option than to risk our
lives to feed our families, he added.
Ghana education service are also worried about the continues
school dropout and performance in the area.
Early morning and mid afternoons you will see some miners
washing down in a nearby river after their work.
