In a decree dated February 27 and published on Wednesday, the governor of the Boucle du Mouhoun region, Babo Pierre Bassinga, sums 43 “artisanal gold mining” sites to close “until further notice”.
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According to a security source, “this responds to the need to limit, or even reduce to nothing, the trafficking of explosives on these artisanal sites, which are very often diverted for the benefit of armed terrorist groups (…) It is also a question of drying up the sources of income of these groups, some of which ransom the mining sites which escape under state control. »
Wild exploitation
The Boucle du Mouhoun, bordering Mali, is regularly hit by deadly attacks from jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. Despite the ban on artisanal gold panning, the Burkinabè authorities are struggling to control this exploitation wild, exercised by more than a million people. At the beginning of February, at least 10 people were killed during the landslide of an artisanal gold mine in western Burkina Faso, according to officials of a gold miners association.
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With about 70 tons per year, the production of legal gold mines has become in a dozen years the first export product of Burkina Faso, ahead of cotton. The artisanal sector generates an additional annual production of about 10 tons of gold, according to the ministry of the Mines.
(with AFP)