Mali: Several gold prospectors swallowed up in a mine collapse

A landslide has engulfed a group of women gold miners in Mali, killing several of them, the office of the governor of the West African country's Koulikoro region said Thursday.

In a statement broadcast on Malian national television, the governor of Koulikoro, Colonel Lamine Kapory Sanogo, said that "the women (gold panners) were numerous in an excavation looking for gold, and the excavation was surrounded by a dike which gave way and the water came in with the mud and engulfed the women. "

The governor's office said the landslide at the artisanal gold mine in southern Mali happened on Wednesday. It said several miners were killed, but did not specify the number of casualties.

This is not the first time such accidents have occurred at a gold mine in Mali, which is known as one of the three gold-producing countries in Africa. In January last year, an unregulated gold mine collapsed in Mali, killing more than 70 people near the capital Bamako.

In recent years, there have been concerns that profits from unregulated mining in northern Mali could benefit extremists operating in that part of the country.

The region where this latest collapse occurred, however, is much further south and closer to Bamako.

“Gold is by far Mali’s most important export, accounting for more than 80% of total exports in 2021,” according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. More than 2 million people, or more than 10% of Mali’s population, rely on the mining sector for their income.

Artisanal gold mining is estimated to produce around 30 tonnes of gold per year and accounts for 6% of Mali's annual gold production.