In Mali, the legislative framework for mining and the government’s mining policy were mainly focused on industrial activity. It is only since 2015 that artisanal mines have begun to attract political interest. However, these still largely escape state control, posing serious and uncontrolled risks to the biophysical and human environment. This is largely due to the use by gold miners of certain dangerous chemicals despite their prohibition.
For more than ten years, gold panning has not been practised in Mali in the traditional way. The reason: a mechanised and semi-industrial extraction process is used, with massive recourse to chemical products, causing enormous damage to human health, fauna and flora. However, the mining code, revised in 2019, contains provisions prohibiting the use of these products, but their application poses a real problem.
Gold panning in Mali is the primary source of income for many households in the mining areas, and is an activity that mainly occupies the poor. It is estimated that nearly 500,000 people work in this sector, of whom nearly 40,000 are miners, according to the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW). Most start working at the age of six.
In this West African country, a major gold producer (gold production is expected to reach 70.10 tonnes in 2022, compared to 69.4 tonnes in 2021, according to estimates from the sector), gold panning, which accounts for almost half of this annual production, is practised at two levels: on land or in the river bed. In both cases, water and chemicals are used, which are very dangerous for human, animal and environmental health. Consisting of extracting mineral substances using a few mechanical means, mechanised artisanal mining in the river is included in gold panning, even though it has implications for the river ecosystem and must therefore be treated in a specific way. According to the deputy national director of hydraulics in Mali, Mr. Damassa Bouaré, this anarchic exploitation causes serious disruptions in the natural drainage of watercourses in addition to seriously polluting the water tables.
This fact was confirmed by one of the leaders of the NGO «Foundation for Development in the Sahel» (FDS), Mr. Boubacar Sidiki Sangaré, who works in this sector. According to Mr. Sangaré, in addition to deforestation, there is also the deterioration of the hydrographic network insofar as the routes of the various waterways are destabilised by the many holes dug in the beds. In addition, the streams are diverted to feed the washing points of the extracted ore. They are also used as outlets for wastewater from machine maintenance and ore washing. He also reports heavy metal pollution caused by the widespread use of chemicals, including mercury, for washing gold in these streams. This destructuring of the river system also leads to a degradation of water quality. The environmental science journal «Vertigo» confirms this in a publication entitled «Analysis of socio-environmental changes induced by mining in Bétaré-Oya, East Cameroon».
Serious risks of contamination of food chains
The deputy national director of hydraulics, Mr Damassa Bouaré, added that these risks are real. According to him, there are serious risks to the water supply in Mali, which is mainly provided by groundwater. He maintains that these are polluted by gold miners who use very toxic chemicals such as mercury, which is a heavy metal, non-biodegradable and capable of contaminating the food chain several times over. In February 2021, the National Directorate of Hydraulics initiated a study led by Prof. Adama Tolofoudye, who currently heads the laboratory of the University of Sciences, Techniques and Technologies of Bamako (USTTB), entitled «Wefe Senegal Project – Support for water resources management and the water-energy-agriculture Nexus in the Senegal River Basin”. Based on the quality of the waters of the Senegal River and its tributaries, namely the Falémé, the Bafing and the Bakoye, the results of this study indicate that these waters “are heavily polluted, mainly due to gold panning and dredging activities that use highly toxic products such as mercury and cyanide».
Thus, it was revealed that due to noise pollution and the use of chemicals, the Falémé no longer has any fish. As for the other tributaries of the Senegal River, namely the Bafing and the Bakoye, the fish, water and other fishery resources found there are unfit for consumption. According to the study, «even if all dredging and gold panning activities were stopped, it would take nearly 20 years for the colour of the water in the Falémé to become normal».
Obvious damage
To see the trouble this situation has created on the waters of the Falémé River, one only has to visit the site. The Falémé River is 650 km long and is a natural border between Mali and Senegal through the regions of Kayes (Mali) and Kédougou (Senegal). It is crossed by a bridge linking the localities of Mahinamine (Mali) and Moussala (Senegal).
On the Mali side, because of the abusive exploitation of gold and the anarchic installation of dredges, the spectacle is desolate. In particular, there are several small lakes littered with piles of rubble accumulated by the dredgers that swarm in its bed. There is hardly any vegetation around since everything has been destroyed. The level of deterioration of the water quality is very worrying. The water is dark reddish in colour and unfit for consumption. Because of the lack of fish and the low agricultural production mainly due to water pollution, fishermen and farmers have exchanged their tools for those of gold diggers. Saddened by this apocalyptic scene of desolation, Moussa Traoré, an old retired civil servant, remembers that in 2005 «the waters of the Falémé River could even be consumed without damage. Today, this is not the case because these waters present real risks».
The same regrets are expressed by Mr Ténéman Konaté, in charge of environmental compliance in an industrial mining company operating in the Kéniéba area. «The abusive use of chemicals in artisanal mining not only weakens the vegetation cover, but also causes environmental degradation,» says Mr Konaté. According to him, the chemicals most commonly used by gold miners in the area are either mercury or, quite rarely, cyanide.
Dirty and polluted water
Based on the results of a water sampling programme set up by his company, he claims to have observed increases in certain parameters such as the conductivity of the water – an element that makes it possible to assess the quantity of dissolved salts in the water – and the turbidity of the water (an element that makes it possible to determine the clarity of the water). He points out that in areas where gold miners are very active, there is a certain discolouration of the water. The real problem, according to this specialist, is not the use of chemicals, but rather their misuse without any means of control. However, in Mali, those involved in mining are subject to strict compliance with Law N°01-020 of 31 May 2001 on pollution and nuisances. This law was promulgated by former President Alpha Oumar Konaré and provides for penalties of deprivation of liberty or fines for all those who engage in activities that cause nuisance and pollution in Mali.
Konaté deplored the use of certain types of oil, such as hydrocarbons, which are very polluting for the fauna and flora. He said that drums of hydrocarbons are dumped directly on the water. He recalled that international standards specify that a single litre of oil can degrade the quality of a million litres of pure water. He warned that water could be the source of many conflicts in the future, as it is becoming more and more scarce due to the aggression it suffers from gold miners and other practices that are harmful to its good management.
These waters polluted by the intensive and poorly controlled use of chemical inputs do not only affect agriculture, fisheries and livestock, they (polluted waters) are also the source of many illnesses, some of which are fatal to humans. Absorbed in small quantities, they (chemical inputs) cause abnormalities such as headaches, nausea, dizziness, anxiety, altered mental state, rapid breathing and high blood pressure, according to Dr. Moussa Modibo Diarra, head doctor of the health district of Kéniéba, a locality located in the Kayes region in western Mali where mining activity is booming.
According to this doctor, the use of chemicals without any means of protection and without any control causes a lot of damage to health. When asked about the pathologies that he most often encounters in the gold miners he receives, he cites skin problems, neurological disorders, anxiety, dizziness, confusion, violent headaches, slowing of the heartbeat, convulsions and often respiratory arrest.
He says that products like mercury act directly on the nervous system, the respiratory system, the urinary system, the skin and the eyes. For his part, he also receives cases of mercury poisoning, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic. Summarising the cases of poisoning linked to chemicals recorded by his health structure in recent years, he said that since 2019, he has recorded about 80 cases of poisoning. Without giving figures, he said that sometimes these cases are so complicated that patients lose their lives, even if some manage to be evacuated to Bamako before it is too late.
Cheap chemicals
According to the Malian authorities, mercury is used in more than 80% of mining sites in Mali, which explains its high demand. It is used in almost all sites in the Kayes region. Located in western Mali, Kayes is one of the cities most severely impacted by gold mining. In 2019, estimates reported by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) indicated that this region produced 73% of the country’s 26 tonnes of artisanal gold in 2019, generating US$1.23 billion. According to experts, it is estimated that one kilo of gold requires an average of about 0.5 to 1.3 kg of mercury. According to the latest estimates, the annual amount of mercury smuggled into the country is estimated at 36 tonnes. This figure is based on the annual production of 24 tonnes of gold mining. Indeed, according to chemical studies, to obtain 1 tonne of gold, 1.5 tonnes of mercury are needed.
The overwhelming majority of this amount, 28 tonnes, is used in gold panning sites in Kayes. Gold miners use mercury – a silvery-white liquid metal – to extract gold from ore because it is cheap and easy to use.
According to Mr Badra Aliou Fofana, programme officer at the NGO ” Foundation for Development in the Sahel” (FDS), who is also a former gold miner, it is the gold buyers who are proposing mercury as a solution to speed up the process. At the Sakoba Bada site, in the Kéniéba circle, it was found that about 10 grams of mercury is sold for between 1,500 and 2,000 francs. This was confirmed by Ousmane Diarra, a gold digger found at the Sakoba Bada site, who was mixing the substance with the mud to extract gold. He was doing it manually and without any protection: no gloves or masks. Unaware of the risks involved, he says that once the work is done, he washes his hands with soap and bleach before going home. “I often suffer from itching and aches and pains which I treat with herbs as I cannot afford hospital treatment. He too did not fail to confirm that it is the gold buyers who offer them chemicals such as mercury, which is widely used on this site.
The process of mixing the ash-like ore with chemicals, known as amalgamation, is most often carried out by women and children (girls and boys). After mixing, the resulting substances form an alloy with the gold, creating an amalgam. The ore is washed on a ramp covered with at least five pieces of rough carpet. The enriched ore after washing the mats with detergent is amalgamated by adding mercury. The amalgamated gold is then cleaned of mercury by heating it in a charcoal furnace. To see this operation with your own eyes, you have to go to the site of Djidian, in the circle of Kita, Kayes region. There’s a lot of noise here. The flow of water is interrupted to wash the mud by dumping all sorts of waste, sometimes chemical. On the gold panning sites many related activities have developed such as trade, catering, machine repair, especially on the larger sites, water sales and transport, blacksmithing and transport. On site, in addition to the noise created by machines such as crushers, grinders, spitters, motor pumps, generators, the air is unbreathable because of the fumes emanating from everywhere.
Kidneys under great challenge
Dr Djiguiba Karamoko, head of the nephrology department at the Mother and Child Hospital “Le Luxembourg” in Bamako, receives many patients from the gold-mining areas. Maintaining that this is a high-risk profession from a medical point of view, he confirmed the toxicity of these chemical products used massively and without any control by the gold miners.
Another product also used in these areas is silica, which is the cause of certain lung diseases such as lung cancer, according to this doctor. Out of 10 to 15 patients he receives from the mining areas, he says that about 6 to 7 suffer from acute kidney failure and often problems of lithiasis (inflammation of the liver and stomach). For him, this could be due to the use of water in the mining areas, which is often rich in limestone or other chemicals that cause kidney stones. Others of his patients suffer from nephro-tubulo-interstitial (kidney dysfunctions due to allergic reactions to drugs or infections). This could be linked to products such as silica and mercury, according to Dr Djiguiba Karamoko.
This situation is not unrelated to the living conditions that prevail on gold mining sites. Indeed, these are generally areas where the population is increasing exponentially. Here, gold mining has been accompanied by a large immigration of people from various backgrounds. Very generally, local people do not oppose their activities as long as there is a profit in it. Before embarking on this activity, gold miners pay a forestry tax of 25,000 francs. In addition, they also have to pay lump sums to the chiefs of the different pits called ‘Tombolomans’. All along the sites, makeshift dwellings such as straw huts can be seen. The occupants live in promiscuity and very precarious hygienic conditions. This situation favours the appearance of certain diseases, mainly affecting children. There are also sexually transmitted infections and HIV infections. The inhabitants also face other phenomena such as early marriage, school drop-out and drug addiction.
According to a former gold miner named Sissoko, in the pits, some people are forced to take drugs and inject themselves with narcotics in order not to see the time pass and have the courage to continue working. Sissoko, who currently works for a mining company, says he was a gold miner from 2012 to 2016. He says that it was after he obtained his law degree in 2012 that he was forced to return home to Djidian to be with his mother after the death of his father. Once back home, he did not hesitate to seize the only opportunity that was offered to him, namely gold panning, which was booming in the area. According to him, his first day in this job was hard but very fruitful as he was able to collect more than 2,000,000 CFA francs. Afterwards, he earned so much money that he was able to rebuild his house and marry three women, who gave him many children.
On the road to Sakolo Bada, we met three girls, Adizatou, Kadia and Mariam, aged 12, 14 and 16 respectively. They were washing the mud taken from the gold panning sites to extract the gold. According to them, they had been forced to drop out of school since they were about 8 years old to do this work. They say that they were preparing for their older sister’s wedding. According to them, a single gram of gold can be worth up to 30,000 FCFA. This was corroborated by a pit master in Djidian who admitted that he had sold the equivalent of 3 million CFA francs, or 100 grams of gold, in a single day. It is this lure of easy money in a country where the minimum wage is 40,000 francs a month. This is a trap for many people who choose to go into gold panning.
Timid response from the authorities
Fearing an ecological disaster at the country’s gold sites, the Malian authorities launched an awareness campaign in 2018 against the dangers of using toxic chemicals in mining. Despite the ban issued in 2017 by the Malian Ministry of Mines, chemicals and toxic products continue to be used. In 2018, a truck full of cyanide was seized by the customs service in the cercle of Kéniéba. More recently, on 31 August 2022, the National Director of Geology and Mines, Cheick Fantamady Keita, contacted the President of the National Federation of Goldpanners of Mali (FNOM) to congratulate him on the discovery of a large quantity of a chemical, sodium cyanide, which had been smuggled into Malian territory. He informed that “this product is very toxic and therefore very dangerous to health”.
Mali ratified the Minamata Convention on Mercury on 27 May 2016. Adopted on 10 October 2013 in Kumamoto, Japan, this text, which entered into force in August 2017, aims to ban the use of this product. The Convention also addresses the issue of interim storage of mercury and its disposal once it has become waste, contaminated sites and health aspects.
In November 2019, Mali developed and began implementation of a National Action Plan (NAP) on mercury which aims to reduce, if possible eliminate, the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
In the same context, Mali’s legal arsenal includes certain texts such as Decree No. 07-135/P-RM of 15 April 2007 establishing the list of hazardous waste, Article 1 paragraph 2 of which mentions mercury and its compounds whose use is prohibited. Article 50 of the Mining Code, revised in 2019, also prohibits the use of mercury and many other chemicals. With no access to the sea, experts indicate that these chemicals are smuggled into Mali from Benin, Togo, Burkina and Senegal, using illicit trafficking routes.
Another type of negative impact on gold panning is the frequent fatal accidents due to both the lack of protective equipment and unplanned excavations. In artisanal mining operations with a high concentration of people, the digging of shafts and galleries, without any safety rules, accompanied by anarchic accumulation of mud, leads to frequent fatal collapses. To limit the damage, particularly during the rainy season, the government has decided to suspend all activities related to gold panning throughout the country from 15 June to 30 September 2022.
For the safety of the gold miners who sometimes work at the risk of their lives, the Ministry of Mines has even urged the administrative and customary authorities, as well as the organisations of the miners concerned by this measure, to combine their efforts to ensure that the provision that the government has just made is respected.
Abandoned mining wells are a source of insecurity for the population, particularly for cattle breeders. During the rains, the wells fill up with water and cause deaths by drowning of people and animals. Thus, from 2019 to 2022, based on media reports, we have recorded at least six very deadly landslides that led to the death of at least 93 people. Among the most deadly cases was one in the Kidal region in May 2021, where at least 40 miners died, and one in the Kéniéba area in September of the same year, where 19 gold miners, including 10 women, were killed.
According to Dr. Diarra Moussa Modibo, head doctor of the Kéniéba health district, on average, there is at least one landslide per month. For him, most of the victims die because they are trapped under the rubble. If they survive, he adds that these people suffer multiple traumas while deploring the abandonment without restoration of old sites, making them unsuitable for agriculture and livestock.
A decision repeatedly violated
To see the violation of the authorities’ decision to ban gold panning during the winter season, one only has to go to Tourela, a locality located near the university town of Kabala and belonging to the circle of Kati, in the Koulikoro region. Every morning, hundreds of young people work around this site, which consists of a succession of pits as far as the eye can see and piles of earth in an indescribable disorder.
This site is several hundred metres of bare ground. Here, the holes dug for the purposes of mining are about 10 m apart. On this site, the gold miners have set up a “tribunal”, managed by the elders, to settle any conflicts that may arise in the event of disagreements around the holes.
There is no health centre nearby. In case of illness, the gold miners are treated with plants and other concoctions whose effect has yet to be scientifically proven.
Mr Sylla, 40, met on this site where he has been working for about five years and said that the occupants resort to “street medicines” or traditional pharmacopoeia in case of illnesses deemed to be benign.
Even in the middle of the rainy season, as is the case in August, the gold panners do not hesitate to go down into the galleries to carry out their activities. However, Moussa Diarra, one of the pit managers we met on site, acknowledged the danger of going down the pits during this period, as many people he knows have lost their lives in landslides. «However, the quest for money and a better life goes beyond all the risks and dangers,” he said. I have mouths to feed and I will not feed my family by crossing my arms,» they add. The case is the same for Fanta Cissé, a widow and mother of four children. She and her family moved to this site two years ago. «After my husband died in a traffic accident, I found myself on my own with no help from anyone,» she says. «I was doing a series of small jobs as a domestic helper without enough income to meet my family’s needs. That’s how one of my acquaintances told me about working in this mine and I admit that I earn a good living,» she says. However, she admits that she would not recommend this work to anyone as she has lost many friends sometimes under the rubble of collapsed mines.
While in other regions of Mali, it is mainly the misuse of chemicals and other toxic substances such as hydrocarbons that causes concern, in the north of the country it is mainly insecurity that causes the most damage. Thus, from October 2019 to September 2022, based on media accounts, we have identified at least four cases of security incidents that cost the lives of at least 18 people. These non-exhaustive cases were recorded at the Intahaka gold panning site, located about 50 km south-west of Gao, and the Tassiga manganese site, a locality in the Ansongo circle, also in the Gao region.
This means that although gold panning has a privileged role in Mali, it is not without risk. Worse still, it only leads to desolation and sadness in view of the high number of deaths caused by chemical products, mine collapses and security incidents, among other things. Often it is the young people who pay the highest price.
Investigation carried out by Massiré DIOP with the support of the Norbert Zongo Unit for Investigative Journalism in West Africa (CENOZO).
