00:00A small nugget of gold.
00:03In the west of Kenya, a new generation of miners
00:06is willing to take massive risks to find them.
00:10Each morning, men from Kakamega County
00:12set out to work in artisanal mines.
00:19Before descending, the leader of this group of miners
00:22gives safety instructions.
00:24He's worried for the new recruits.
00:30Is it OK?
00:32Light it.
00:34Let's go.
00:37They work in an old British gold mine
00:40that was abandoned after Kenya's independence.
00:43Now, a Kenyan owner has taken over operations at the site.
00:47It reaches more than 30 meters underground.
00:55You have to watch where you step.
00:56There are rocks, pipes, and electrical cables.
01:02The miners plunge into the darkness,
01:04armed only with their headlamps.
01:06They have no protective gear.
01:08They continue to walk in more than a meter of water,
01:11trying to avoid electrocution.
01:13The material we want, which we get gold from them.
01:18It is this line.
01:19I don't know if you can see the line.
01:22The working is very dangerous.
01:23Like, after blasting, you get the areas where the rock is very weak.
01:31The men dig all day without seeing a single nugget.
01:38For hours, they take shifts in the dark to fill bags with quartz,
01:43hoping to spot some gold.
01:45They have very little oxygen.
01:50Despite the risks, they don't hesitate to work in the mine.
02:04Only a few months ago, they were cooks, farmers, or bricklayers, like Dennis.
02:08When I was a bricklayer, I earned three euros a day.
02:13Here in the mine, I can earn 30 euros, or even more.
02:18A gold rush has transformed the landscape of the region.
02:22Artisanal mining is making the land more fragile.
02:25On the surface, women take up the next set of tasks.
02:30Marceline was a teacher.
02:32And Theresa, a shopkeeper.
02:36Now, they spend all day sieving out impurities from pay dirt.
02:40I am processing this soil that I have brought from the mining.
02:45The cold will remain on these rocks.
02:48Because that cold is strong.
02:50If the soil is light, it moves with water.
02:53I will remove these rocks and get that cold.
02:58Timothy Mukoshi, the county's mining union representative,
03:02visits the site.
03:03He's supposed to officially register the workers and ensure their safety.
03:10The number of people has tripled in the mining fields.
03:13There are quite a lot of issues linked to the miners.
03:16For example, the issue of environmental degradation,
03:21the issue of hazardous chemicals, e.g. mercury,
03:25and also the key issue is the lack of mining technology.
03:32Most workers are not officially registered.
03:35They sell their gold to wholesalers in the city who prefer to remain anonymous.
03:40Since the COVID pandemic and the war in Ukraine,
03:43the price of gold has skyrocketed.
03:47We do this every day.
03:49It can be 5, 10, or 20 grams.
03:51We heat it for 20 minutes, then remove it and pour it here.
03:55The gold is then sold abroad.
03:58Once melted down, it is difficult to trace its origin
04:01and determine the conditions under which it was mined.
04:0530 tons of gold reportedly remain in the region's subsoil,
04:09and more than 5,000 people have taken up artisanal mining here in recent years.
04:13It's an economic sector Kenya still struggles to regulate
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