Eleven die in Burkina gold mine attack
Eleven people have been killed in an attack on a gold mine in northern Burkina Faso, two days after a similar raid in the same area.
Baliata is located on the road linking Gorom-Gorom to Dori, capital of the country’s Sahel region. Last week, at least 10 miners died in an attack on an illegal gold mine in Tondobi, between Dori and the border with Niger. The attackers were suspected jihadists.
Legal mining
Despite a ban on unofficial gold mining, which regularly triggers fatal landslides, the authorities in Burkina struggle to control sites that provide work for an estimated 1.2 million people. An accidental dynamite explosion at an illegal gold mine in the southwest of the country left more than 60 people dead in February. Legal mining produces about 70 tonnes of gold a year, making it Burkina’s biggest export, and generates 50,000 jobs, according to official figures. The mining ministry says unauthorised mines produce 10 tonnes of gold a year.
Like neighbouring Mali and Niger, Burkina has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2015. The violence has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced 1.7 million in Burkina, according to an AFP tally. Islamist combatants affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group operate mainly in the north and east of Burkina, targeting civilians and troops. A junta seized power in Ouagadougou on January 24 and has made tackling the insurgency a priority. Ousted president Roch Marc Christian Kabore was unable to contain the insurgency.
