Illegal Gold Mining rocks Baomahun village

Gold Digger Momoh Kargbo, aged 27 years, deeply swallowed by the brown muddy soil of Baomahun village, as he struggles to excavate a rocky mud with a shovel in the search for Gold.
The ramshackle pit is surrounded by pools of dykes being emptied by a running bailing machine. Dressed in rags he looks pale as he steps in the pit without gloves and other protective gears to excavate the mud and later wash the gravel in a dam with a head pan and sieve.
He is excavating a land that he had no authority to but due to the ineptness of the Mines Monitoring Officers in the area the land has been transformed to a battle field for survival for both locals and aliens competing for gold sites.
The mining sites are scattered around the green and rocky hills of Mongere and Baomahun village in the Valunia Chiefdom Bo District.
Miners disclosed to this Investigative Reporter that “we are mining gold illegally some times we bribe Chiefdom authorities for them to stop disturbing us at the mining site”
A cross section of the illegal miners on condition of anonymity said “the Government Officers in the area are not even bothered as to who has mining license or not; as a result we are taking advantage of the situation to find our living in the mining fields just to feed our families”.
Most of the illegal Miners are literally living in abject poverty and squalor environment .Brima said “I have been mining in this area for over two years now but life is difficult, the gold we are looking for is hard to find and its is also costly to hire the bailing machine and to contract workers in the fields”.
He said “we pay Le30, 000.00 to hire a bailing machine and Le 5,000.00 for daily labour but when we get the gold we sell for Le 22,000.00 per carat to businessmen and women based at Baomahun village, we are making little profit and the job is extremely difficult.” Brima explained.
Brima also said that he is a school drop out and that he does not have any source of generating income to earn his living which he said has forced him to go into illegal mining.
“Sometimes we go into hiding in the forest, if Mines Monitoring Officers are visiting the area and we will return later to continue our indiscriminate mining.”
“Cost of living is high in this mining village due to the mad rush for gold, a cup of rice is being sold for Le 800.000, other basic commodities particularly food items are also too expensive and most people cannot afford to buy food to eat.”
He noted that there is growing hardship and despair among the people adding that they often fall ill with malaria and pneumonia due to the poor environment and the lack of good food to eat.
Police sources at Mongere has reported dramatic increase in crime rate at the gold mining fields and they police find it difficult to arrest suspects because offenders are always on the hills mining gold.
A Police source said they lack the logistics and manpower to do their job in a terrible terrain like the mountainous areas in Baomahun village and lack of mobile coverage has also compounded the situation for the Police.
Mines and Minerals Minister Alpha Kanu while addressing locals past weekend, called on villagers to assist the government in encouraging miners to take their license so that government will use the revenue to develop the area, while he strictly warned illegal miners to desist from depleting the land.
Baomahun village is now a booming area with several commercial activities taking place though the road is terrible commercial motor bikes are helping to move goods and services from one place to the other for a fee.
By Saidu Bah