At least 100 people have been killed after a landslide struck an illegal gold mine in the Central African Republic near the border with Cameroon on Tuesday, with rescue teams continuing to search for survivors and victims at the site.The collapse occurred at the Zamboye mining site, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the Central African town of Baboua, where hundreds of artisanal miners were working in the large open-pit operation. Several people were also injured and taken to hospital in Baboua.Local sources put the death toll at around 100, although authorities said the final figure had not yet been established as search operations continued on Wednesday.“The ground completely collapsed and buried people,” Cedric Mbango, a miner at the site, told AFP, describing the incident as “catastrophic”.The Baboua public prosecutor said the landslide was believed to have been triggered by “the collapse of several underground tunnels in which miners were operating”. A judicial inquiry has been opened into the accident.“At this stage it’s difficult for us to establish a formal toll,” Baboua elected official Laurent Ngon Baba told AFP early on Wednesday.At least four of those killed were Cameroonian, according to the Cameroon Tribune. Authorities from both countries were involved in dealing with the aftermath.Gregoire Mvongo, governor of Cameroon’s eastern region, said on public broadcaster CRTV that they were “working in close collaboration with our Central African colleagues to deal with the aftermath of this tragedy”.The disaster has renewed scrutiny of dangerous conditions at unregulated mining sites in the mineral-rich Central African Republic, where landslides and tunnel collapses are common in operations outside state control.Martin Ziguele, president of the Movement for the Liberation of the Centrafrican People, blamed the government for the repeated accidents, saying “the government bears direct responsibility for the occurrence of these tragedies”.Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto also condemned the conditions faced by miners, saying the accident exposed “the inhumanity of those who grow rich from the illegal exploitation of minerals”.“They show absolutely no concern for the conditions in which compatriots, driven by destitution, work at unregulated mining sites, without the slightest safety measures,” Kamto said.The latest collapse comes after a series of deadly mining accidents along the Central African Republic-Cameroon border. In June, a similar collapse at the Be-Mbari gold mining site killed several dozen people.Seven people were killed in a landslide at a mine in Ngourroum in western Central African Republic in mid-March, while another 20 died in a mining accident in Gordi in the country’s north-east in February.Although artisanal mining is regulated in the Central African Republic, many miners and traders operate without permits or in unauthorised areas and bypass official trading channels, according to Aicha Pemboura, a researcher with the Central Africa Observatory on Organised Crime and Violence Project.The mining sector has also come under scrutiny in neighbouring Cameroon. The government said last month that it would strengthen controls over gold production after discovering a significant gap between gold exports declared by customs and imports reported by destination countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates.Cameroonian authorities have said more than 200 companies are conducting mining activities without the required permits or authorisation. The country adopted a new mining code in 2023 as it seeks to develop its mineral resources, including gold, diamonds, iron, bauxite and cobalt.
