How jihadists struck gold in Africa's Sahel
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People around Pama, a West African town on the edge of vast forested conservation areas, had long been forbidden by their government to dig for gold in the reserves, to protect antelope, buffalo and elephants.
In mid-2018, men wearing turbans changed the rules.
Riding in with assault rifles on motorbikes and in 4X4 trucks, they sent government troops and rangers fleeing from the area in eastern Burkina Faso bordering the Sahel, a belt of scrubland south of the Sahara Desert.
The armed men said residents could mine in the protected areas, but there would be conditions. Sometimes they demanded a cut of the gold. At other times they bought and traded it.
The men "told us not to worry. They told us to pray," said one man who gave his name as Trahore and said he had worked for several months at a mine called Kabonga, a short drive northwest of Pama. It was not safe for reporters to visit the region, but five other miners who had been to Kabonga corroborated his account.
The pits around Pama are no isolated case. Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, having lost ground in the Middle East, are expanding in Africa and exploiting gold mines across the region, data on attacks and interviews with two dozen miners and residents, and government and security officials, show. Besides attacking industrial operations, two of the world's most feared extremist forces are tapping the $2 billion informal gold trade in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – a flow that is already largely out of state control.
Researchers and the United Nations have warned of the risks of armed extremists reaching the region's gold mines; analysis of data from Burkina Faso, and testimony from people who have fled mining areas, show this is happening at scale. For the Islamists, the mines are both a hideout and a treasure trove: of funds with which to recruit new members and buy arms, and of explosives and detonators to stage the attacks that extend their power.
A poor country of mainly subsistence farmers, Burkina Faso has in recent years become the focus of a campaign by local insurgents and regional jihadi groups. The violence has killed hundreds of people, including at least 39 gold mine workers ambushed on a road earlier this month. Dozens of robberies and kidnappings have been reported that target mining.
The attacks extend towards hundreds of small-scale mines in Burkina Faso alone. Around 2,200 possible informal gold mines were identified in a government survey of satellite imagery in 2018. About half of them are within 25 km (16 miles) of places where militants have carried out attacks.
It is hard to say how much gold the mines produce or exactly who controls them – many are in places where government forces are absent and bandits roam – but the sums involved are huge. In 2018, government officials visited just 24 sites near where attacks had taken place and estimated they produced a total of 727 kg of gold per year – worth about $34 million at current prices.
Oumarou Idani, Burkina Faso's minister of mines, said in May that Islamists had taken control of some mines, especially in protected areas, where they encouraged camps of miners to dig in violation of government bans. "They fed the camp and bought and sold gold," he said.
Incidents linked to Islamists dropped sharply that month, after military operations helped drive insurgents from mining areas. But by October, the total had almost returned to its peak from before the military actions, the ACLED data shows.
Most of Burkina Faso's informally produced gold is smuggled to its neighbours, particularly Togo, to avoid export taxes, according to the government. From there, it is flown to refineries before it is exported to countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Switzerland and India.
Gold has long been an ideal commodity for insurgents: It retains its value; it is widely accepted as a proxy for currency in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia; and once refined, it can easily be smelted and smuggled.
Informal mines in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger produce between them some 50 tonnes of gold, worth $2 billion. Of this, small-scale miners in Burkina Faso produce around 15-20 tonnes of gold a year, worth between $720 million and $960 million.
In Burkina Faso as elsewhere, jihadist groups are adept at exploiting local grievances to win people over. In a country with annual incomes of just $660 a head, government efforts to close off mines to individual diggers – whether for conservation or to make way for big business – are unpopular.
Gold flows out of Burkina Faso across porous land borders in cars and buses. It is strapped to cattle or hidden in bales of hay attached to bicycles. Miners at Kabonga, in an area near Pama reserved for herders to raise their livestock, said buyers included locals and traders from neighbouring countries, including Ghana, Togo, Benin and Niger.
Burkina Faso's government has tried to contain the militants.
In January, miners said, the military dropped leaflets from helicopters telling miners to leave sites around Kabonga. The next month, the military said its forces had killed around 30 fighters in airstrikes and ground operations in the area.
The government banned small-scale mining across the east and much of northern Burkina Faso, and government troops mounted a six-week offensive, dubbed Operation Firestorm, to restore state authority in the east. On April 12, General Moise Miningou, head of Burkina Faso's armed forces, declared at a news conference: "Our mission was accomplished."
Despite government bans, mining continues in areas where Islamists operate: In October, 20 people were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists on an informal gold-mining site in the northern province of Soum, security sources said.
Today, it is unclear who controls Kabonga, the mine near the wildlife-rich reserve by the Sahel.
Source: Economic Times
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