Two young lives that ended in the search for gold

There is a sense of disbelief in this Sierra Leonean village as people weep over the bodies of two young boys wrapped in white cloth.

The other day, 16-year-old Mohamed Bangura and 17-year-old Yayah Jenneh left their home in Nyimbadu in the country’s Eastern Province, hoping to earn some more money for their family.

They went looking for gold but never came back. The makeshift pit they had dug collapsed on them.

This was the third fatal mining accident in this area in the last four years, killing at least five children.

According to the school principal and community activists, Mohamed and Yayah were part of a phenomenon in parts of Sierra Leone that has seen a growing number of children missing school to extract the precious metal from potentially lethal mines.

The Eastern Province is historically known for diamond mining. But as diamond reserves have been depleted in recent years, informal or artisanal gold mining has become widespread.

Mining areas are popping up wherever local people find deposits in these rich lands, agricultural lands, old cemeteries and river beds.

There are a small number of formal mining companies operating here, but in areas that are not considered profitable, the landscape is dotted with these irregular pits that can be up to 4 meters (13 feet) deep.

Similar and equally dangerous mines can be found in many African countries, with frequent reports of fatal collapses.

Most families in Nyimbadu depend on small-scale farming and petty trading for their livelihood. Alternative employment is scarce, so the opportunity to earn extra money is very attractive.

But the village community gathered at the local funeral home knows that this will also result in the loss of the lives of two hopeful young people.

Yayah’s mother, Namina Jenneh, was a widow and relied on her young son to care for her five other children.

Having worked in the pits himself, he admits introducing Yayah to mining, but says: “He didn’t tell me he was going to that field; if I had known, I would have stopped him.”

He said he begged someone to “call the excavator driver” when he got word of the collapse.

“When he arrived, he cleared the debris that buried the children.”

But it was too late to save them.

Ms. Jenneh speaks with deep pain. On a mobile phone with a cracked screen, she browses pictures of her son, a bright-eyed boy who supports her.

Local child protection activist Sahr Ansumana takes me to the collapsed pit.

“If you ask some parents, they’ll tell you they have no alternative. They’re poor, widowed, single parents,” he says.

“They need to take care of the kids. They encourage the kids to go and dig. We’re struggling and we need help. We’re worried and out of control.”

However, the warning is ignored; The loss of Yayah and Muhammad did not empty the holes.

The day after their funerals, the miners, including children, returned to work; They sift the sand on the river bank with their hands or examine the hand-dug soil for the sparkle of gold.

On one site, I meet 17-year-old Komba Sesay, who wants to become a lawyer, but he spends his daytime hours here to support his mother.

“There is no money,” he says. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. I’m working on getting signed up and sitting down. [high school] exams. I want to return to school. “I’m not happy here.”

Komba’s earnings are insufficient. Most earn around $3.50 (£2.65) a week; This is less than half of the minimum wage in the country. But he persists in the hope of getting rich. Some, very rare, finds enough ore to earn him $35 on a good day.

Of course he knows the job is risky. Komba has friends who were injured in pit collapses. But he thinks mining is the only way he can make some money.

And it’s not just students who are leaving schools.

“Teachers also leave classes to go to mining sites, mining with students,” says Roosevelt Bundo, head teacher of Gbogboafeh Aladura Secondary School in Nyimbadu.

Government salaries cannot compete with what they could earn from gold mining.

There are also signs of wider change around mining centres. The once small camps have grown into towns over the past two years.

The government says it will find a solution to this problem.

Information Minister Chernor Bah told the BBC that the government remained committed to education but that the state was aware of the many challenges people face.

“We spend about 8.9% of our GDP on education, the highest among other countries in this subregion,” he says, adding that the funds go to teachers, school feeding programs and subsidies to keep children in the classroom.

But on the field, reality bites. Immediate survival often trumps politics.

Charities and local activists are trying to take children out of the pits and send them back to school, but the pits are so attractive because there are no reliable income alternatives.

The families of the two children who died in Nyimbado look exhausted and hollow.

The loss is not just the lives of two young people. This is the constant erosion of possibilities over the course of a generation.

“We need help,” says activist Mr. Ansumana. “Not a prayer. Not a promise. Help me.”