"Is, for such ambition, this earth not too small?” - Friedrich Nietzsche
For a long time, people cultivated their land.
There were elephants, lions...
But when they began discovering mineral resources,
they stopped cultivating the land.
They only wanted to mine the ore.
But in 2010, a company closed the area.
They forced the population to leave, there were shootings, chaos...
and the people were full of fear and fled.
The company took over.
Now, it is a forbidden area.
THE GOLD RUSH
My name is Marcelino Miguel.
I have four children.
I liked searching for rubies but...
the proprietors of the forest forbid it.
And if they find you, you will not be forgiven.
The ruby is a very appreciated stone.
One gram can be worth €1,000 or €2,000...
Even a small stone can solve your problems at home.
This job depends entirely on luck
because when you go in there you can easily die.
Hey... What are you doing?
- Here? - Yes.
I'm looking for stones.
This is dangerous.
This is very dangerous, because in here
the earth can cave in at any time.
My brother Ramadam used to say:
"I'm going to find a thousand stones in that cave!"
There, the place is called Ncoloto.
"I'll even find rubies!"
He went into a cave like this one.
He went in to try and dig.
Since there were lots of stones there, it filled up with people.
He was digging and the earth caved in and he died.
But what can I do?
I have to keep trying.
If I die, it is God's will.
That's why I am here inside this cave
to be able to eat, and to feed my children.
Illegal miners come here, but they are afraid.
When the company discovers there are people prospecting and finding stones,
they go and bury them with their machines.
Last month, 25 miners were buried. They did not come out.
Hey, friend!
THE VALUE OF THE RUBY DEPOSIT IN THE CAPE DELGADO-MONTEPUEZ REGION
IS AROUND 1 BILLION $.
60% OF THE POPULATION LIVES ON LESS THAN $1.25 A DAY.
Wilson.
The police saw me prospecting, and started chasing me in Nañupo.
I fell in a hole, and that's when I hurt myself here.
The pain is very intense.
Even though he denies it, he was a victim of assault.
These marks show he was probably assaulted.
He may not tell the true for fear of retaliation.
Last week there was a massive police presence in these areas.
He was running from the police.
Rubies. A ruby mine.
When they go into the forest, they spend a long time there
dirty, without bathing...
If a woman comes,
around five men sleep with the same woman.
When they come here, they have syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes...
It's normal to treat six patients
for STDs in one day (sexually transmitted diseases).
Are there women in the mine?
Yes, but they don't dig.
He has a sexually transmitted disease.
He doesn't remember who he was with recently.
It's a chaos. They are illegal miners...
They live in precarious conditions.
Money!
The stone! I'm going to show you the stone!
Stones are good.
When they come back from the mines, they consume a lot of drugs and alcohol.
There is a lot of unprotected sex in this area.
This causes a lot of infections:
sexually transmitted diseases, HIV...
Cultivating the land isn't profitable anymore.
The land has nothing left to offer...
there's pollution in the air, in the rivers...
Agriculture does not satisfy daily needs.
Many women stop working the land and go in search of money.
They leave their homes, abandon their husbands...
Two or three days go by, they can't find money...
They are hungry because they stopped cultivating the land...
so they have sex to survive.
She's alone...
She comes here every day.
Many young girls leave their homes and come here to sell their bodies
to the miners.
My name is Toni Zeferino.
I've been here for three years, mining for gold.
That's why I know gold, I have a lot of experience.
Gold isn't like rubies.
Gold requires more work
and you don't earn very much.
That's what the work is like here.
It's a man's job.
The boys come here to work, to try and survive.
I have a son. He lives with his mother in Nampula.
I haven't seen him for two years...
I don't have money to go and visit him.
Here you work in fear... fear of having to run, to flee.
Suddenly you hear shots...
That's why there is always fighting here.
There are drugs, prostitution...
I'd like to get out of here, but I don't have the means.
I'm searching for gold.
This is gold.
It's difficult to find gold, to know where to look.
You work very hard for very little gold.
Less than half a gram a day.
A gram is 2,000MTs ($25).
They take it far away, and they make lots of money
because they sell it for more.
It seems like there aren't any places left with a lot of gold.
There are only places like this one, without much gold.
The gold is all gone.
In this area there used to be a lot of gold
because a river ran through it.
This was a river. Until now, it was a river.
The river dried up because of so much digging.
There's not even a drop down here.
The people dried it all up.
They say this country is rich... I don't know if it's rich or not.
I'm not rich. My country is rich, but I'm not rich.
I spend more and more time here, in the mines,
but I never achieve anything.
- What are you doing tomorrow? - I'm working.
- Where do you work? - In Nicuita.
I'm here to talk about mercury. You all know what that is, right?
Mercury is sold here.
People bring it from far away. They bring it and they sell it here.
And we buy it.
This is the product. This is mercury.
It's this.
When we use mercury to meld gold, we burn it, right?
And that smoke, when we inhale it, where does it go?
Into our bodies.
And that water, where does it go?
You bathe in it, drink it, cook with it...
We noticed that the food on the bottom was a different color.
We served the food right here because we didn't have plates.
Soon people started having symptoms:
diarrhea, stomach ache...
The water you drink isn't good for you.
It causes a lot of problems.
It's harmful for our bodies.
It can cause tremors in young children.
And in pregnant women
it can cause delays in the development of the fetus.
Their brain may not work properly.
For you, and for all of us in the town,
this mercury is harmful.
It starts when you dump the mercury into the water...
and then it flows into the river...
and the river flows into the sea...
The fishermen go to fish in the sea, then they sell us the poisoned fish.
We want to minimize the use of mercury.
Because mercury is harmful not just for one person, but for many people.
FORCED BY POVERTY, 15 MILLION MINERS EXTRACT
ROUGHLY 500 TONS OF GOLD AROUND THE WORLD EACH YEAR.
TO OBTAIN ONE GRAM OF GOLD, THEY USE 1 – 15 GRAMS OF MERCURY.
THE MERCURY USED IN TRADITIONAL MINING
REPRESENTS 40% OF MERCURY EMISSIONS ON THE PLANET.
THE GOLD RUSH
medicusmundi thanks all the institutions
that made this film possible,
particularly the Mozambique Ministry of Health (MISAU).
The opinions here express the feelings and experiences
of reps of miners' organizations and non-associated miners.
To provide various standpoints and confirm the information,
we requested interviews with local mining companies.
Our request was turned down.
Many thanks to the staff of medicusmundi in Barcelona,
Maputo and Cape Delgado for making this documentary possible.
Additional archives:
Funding for this documentary was provided by AECID,
as per Agreement 14-CO1-424:
“Strengthening, Advancement and Defense
of Primary Health Care in Mozambique.”
medicusmundi is responsible for the contents,
which do not necessarily reflect AECID's views.
This documentary has been disseminated with the help of the EU.
medicusmundi is solely responsible for the contents,
which should not be deemed to reflect the views of the EU.
Filmed in Mozambique.