Alpha Compaore (public prosecutor) in Gaoua stated to AFP that there were 63 people who have died and about 40 others injured.
Gbomblora’s explosion was thought to have been caused in part by chemicals that were used to treat the gold at the site.
Reuters reported that state television broadcast video of bodies lying on the ground, and injured men in a hospital.
“I saw bodies everywhere. It was terrible,” Sansan Kambou a forest ranger, who was there during the explosion, said to The Associated Press by telephone.
He said that the first explosion occurred at 2 p.m. and more followed as people fled for their lives.
According to Reuters, “When we arrived, the bodies had been scattered so we had to secure it and use volunteers to evacuate them,” Poni Province High Commission Antoine Sylvanus Douamba stated. It was most likely caused by explosives, but we don’t know how.
Burkina Faso, Africa’s fastest-growing producer of gold and fifth largest in Africa is currently the country with the most important export: gold. It employs approximately 1.5 million people, and is worth around $2 billion in 2019.
Gbomblora is one of the many small gold mines that has grown in recent decades. There are approximately 800 such mines across the country. According to South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, a lot of the gold is being smuggled into Niger, Benin, Niger, Togo and Niger.
Al Qaeda and Islamic State jihadis are also said to have used the small-scale mines. They have attacked the country since 2016. These groups are said to raise funds by taxing miners and use the mine sites as refuge for fighters and recruits.
According to mining experts, small-scale mines are subject to fewer regulations than industrial mines and can therefore be more dangerous.
Marcena Hunter, senior analyst with Global Initiative, a Swiss think tank, stated that “the limited regulation of the small-scale and artisanal mining sector contributes towards increased risks that could be very dangerous including the use illegally smuggled explosives into the country.”
