Over 1,000 gold diggers on trial after huge crackdown

Around 100,000 people have arrived in Mali's capital, Bamako, and a further 60,000 have gathered in the border town of Kouremale, in the tumult that followed a crackdown on illegal mining in neighboring Guinea.

In early November, the authorities in Guinea launched an operation against the informal mining industry in the gold-rich region of Siguiri near the border with Mali. There are also established mining companies in the area, but hundreds of thousands of informal gold prospectors have sought there in the wake of the steeply rising price of the precious metal. Mining has major consequences for the environment, where erosion and water pollution are described as the biggest problems.

By all accounts, there has been a lack of a plan for how the fugitive gold prospectors would be handled. AFP describes on Friday a chaotic situation in Mali where many have lost contact with family members. The workers come from the Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso and from other countries in the region.

- We worked hard there. Then everything changed in one day. We were told to leave the place immediately and we were not even given time to collect our tools or savings. I left everything behind—my spades, some gold nuggets, my clothes. Now I'm on my way home with nothing, ruined.

This is what Seydou Traoré, who is a Burkinabe gold prospector in his 30s, told AFP in Mali's capital, Bamako.

The situation is difficult for Mali, which has been regionally isolated since President Assimi Goïta took power in a military coup five years ago. Since before, there are close to a million internally displaced people in the country due to the conflict with Islamist groups that prevail in northern Mali.

In Guinea, the effort against illegal mining is progressing. On Wednesday, a trial began in Guinea's capital Conakry against more than 1,200 people accused as a group of illegal mining. Their lawyer Abou Camara says they deny the allegations.

- The real perpetrators are elsewhere. We must not use my clients as scapegoats. They are in no way connected to this, he says according to AFP.