‘We now face guns’: Small-scale miners fear Wagner’s advances in CAR
Al Jazeera
Local miners in Central African Republic face eviction and violence as Russian group takes over gold and diamond mines.
Beloko, Central African Republic – When Sadock arrived in the northwestern Central African Republic (CAR) town of Koki in November 2022, he thought he had finally found a safe place to live and work.
For years, small-scale miners like him have been displaced and forced to relocate over and over again whenever foreigners entered a local area, seized surrounding gold mines and evicted local miners.
“Some of us [artisanal miners] decided to move to Koki because we thought at the time that no one was disturbing artisanal miners in the [northwest] region,” Sadock, who wanted to be identified by only his first name for fear of retribution, told Al Jazeera.
“We soon found out that we made a huge mistake,” the 23-year-old said.
After President Faustin-Archange Touadera asked for help to deal with rebel groups in CAR in 2017, Russia’s Wagner Group arrived.
