At least 100 killed in landslide at illegal gold mine in Central African Republic

Rich from ‘illegal exploitation’

Martin Ziguele, president of the Movement for the Liberation of the Centrafrican People, said “the government bears direct responsibility for the occurrence of these tragedies”.

Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto said the accident revealed “the inhumanity of those who grow rich from the illegal exploitation of minerals”.

“They show absolutely no concern for the conditions in which compatriots, driven by destitution, work at unregulated mining sites, without the slightest safety measures,” said Kamto, a high-profile critic of Cameroonian President Paul Biya who came second to the president in the 2018 election.

Cameroon, which is banking on the exploitation of its mineral resources — notably iron, diamonds, gold, bauxite and cobalt — to develop its economy, adopted a new mining code in 2023.

Last month, the Cameroonian government announced the strengthening of controls in the gold sector after a significant discrepancy was discovered between gold exports declared by customs and imports declared by importing countries, notably the United Arab Emirates.

The government says that more than 200 companies are carrying out mining activities in Cameroon without a permit or authorisation.

In June, a similar collapse killed several dozen at the Be-Mbari gold mining site, also on the Central African Republic-Cameroon border.

In mid-March, a landslide killed seven people at a mine in the village of Ngourroum, also in the west of the Central African Republic.

Another 20 were killed in February in Gordi, in the northeast.

“Although artisanal mining in the Central African Republic is regulated, many miners and traders operate without mining permits in unauthorised areas or bypass official trade channels,” Aicha Pemboura, a researcher at the Central Africa Observatory on Organised Crime and Violence Project, wrote in an article in March.