Cameroon seals 30 mining sites after scores of miners, incl. children, died – The North Africa Post

Cameroon has closed at least 30 gold mines after more than 33 young miners were killed by landslides in Cameroon this month. Scores more were also declared missing.
On Monday (22 August), the local government deployed several hundred troops to seal at least 30 gold mines in Kambele, a village in Batouri district on Cameroon’s eastern border with the Central African Republic. Kambele is home to several thousand Cameroonians and Chadian civilians, who are looking for work in gold mines. Authorities in Cameroon stated that they are concerned about the conditions that have resulted in deaths within the seasonal mine community. According to reports, the facilities have defied a July 2022 ban on mining activities. The troops and humanitarian workers arrived at the site to search for missing miners. They also recovered bodies from collapsed sites.
The central African state’s government officials say at least 33 miners, a majority of them school children on holiday — including about 10 children ages nine to 13 — have died in Kambele within the past month. The government didn’t say whether the dead or missing miners were Cameroonians. It also did not include displaced persons fleeing conflict elsewhere in CAR. Under Cameroonian law, children under the age of 14 aren’t allowed to work, but poverty pushes parents to send their children to work in mining sites where they are paid $3 after 24 hours of work. After the Cameroon government claimed that child labor was used by miners, Korean mining companies left Cameroon in 2014. The government has yet to say when the ban will be lifted.