Скачать или смотреть Mercury fuels gold mining in Senegal - and it’s poisoning the people who use it

(13 May 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tonboronkoto, Senegal - 16 January 2025
1. Wide of gold mines in Tonboronkoto, in Senegal’s Kedougou region
2. Various of women processing clay and dirt in a local water source, attempting to find gold
3. Woman stands with her baby while other women look for gold
4. Sadio Camara walks to her home where she extract gold from the local rock she has collected
5. Camara holds a bag of mercury in her hand
6. Camara looks at the bag of mercury
7. SOUNDBITE (Malinke) Sadio Camara, gold miner:
“I know it’s dangerous, because when we go to exchange the gold and they heat it again, those guys wear masks to avoid the smoke. So if they’re wearing masks, it must be dangerous.”
8. Various of Camara mixing mercury with dirt and rocks to extract gold that may be inside
9. Various of Camara taking out the gold-mercury amalgam that results from the mixing
10. SOUNDBITE (Malinke) Sadio Camara, gold miner:
“We are doing this because of ignorance and lack of means. If you don’t have the means you don't care about the consequences, you do whatever it takes to get what you need. If the government knows what is good for us, come and show us.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kedougou Region, Senegal - 16 January 2025
11. Open pit where people mine for gold
12. Various of Doudou Dramé, president of the Observatoire Territoriale du Secteur Extractif, an organization that advocates for safer conditions for gold miners in Kedougou, looking into the mine

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kedougou, Senegal - 15 January 2025
13. SOUNDBITE (French) Doudou Dramé, advocate for gold miners:
“As it’s a product from which the consequences don’t come right away, and it takes some time, this means people ignore the risks. If you stabbed yourself with a knife it wounds you, if mercury did the same, people wouldn't touch it. But with mercury you can go years without feeling the effects. The consequences come later.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tonboronkoto, Senegal - 16 January 2025
14. Sadio Camara burning the gold-mercury amalgam to extract pure gold
15. Close of the amalgam being heated
16. Gold that remains after the amalgam has been heated
17. Camara’s son watching after she has heated the amalgam

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tambacounda, Senegal - 17 January 2025
18. SOUNDBITE (French) Modou Goumbala, La Lumiere NGO:
“Mercury is generally discharged into the waterways. And it is women who are most in contact with water for household chores. So it is women who use water much more than men. Men use it to wash and certainly for the bathroom. But women do the laundry with water, women do the dishes. Women wash the children. And women often use the waterways for this, not having sources of safe drinking water."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bantaco, Senegal - 16 January 2025
19. Gold processing site, currently not in use
20. Various of a shaking table used to separate gold from earth with the use of gravity

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tambacounda, Senegal - 17 January 2025
21. SOUNDBITE (French) Modou Goumbala, La Lumiere NGO:
“People used it up until a certain point, but then there was a slowdown. Because a single machine cannot cover the entire community, of course. Those who were nearby could come and use it, but for those who were far away, they could afford not to transport the ore, bring it here, process it, and carry it back again.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bantaco, Senegal - 16 January 2025
22. Various of Bantaco, a mining town in Senegal’s Kedougou Region

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nyack, New York, United States - 9 May 2025
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bantaco, Senegal - 16 January 2025
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