‘No choice’: Burkina miners toil in Ouagadougou quarry

‘No choice’: Burkina miners toil in Ouagadougou quarry

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso: Dust and toxic fumes billow from a cavernous, ashy granite quarry in the center of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou. A giant crater located among the roads, houses and administrative buildings of the city’s Pissy neighborhood, the mine has been dug by hand over 40 years. Artisanal miners toil in the bowels of the earth, with men engaged in back-breaking labor as they smash rocks into smaller chunks with hammers and chisels. Women, often with only flip-flops for footwear, ferry the granite up the steep mine walls in pans weighing several kilograms balanced on their heads.

Some workers sell granite blocks at the bottom of the hole, while others are paid to haul them to the surface for women and teenagers who crush them into small pebbles before selling them. The granite is used to make buildings, paving stones or roads, but the fruits of the workers’ labor amount to a pittance-usually one or two euros per day. “With this money I have to feed the children, pay for their schooling-it’s really tough,” Abarat Nikiema told AFP. “I’ve been here for 10 years and until now I haven’t got by. It’s really sad.”

‘Serious injuries’

At 9 o’clock in the morning,