Doropo, Ivory Coast
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
By Hervé BAR
In northeastern Ivory Coast, illegal gold mining is one of the main activities for young people who lack prospects for the future, to the point that it is now the most serious threat to the immense Comoé National Park, where many young people go to dig at their own risk.
Gold, a safe haven asset that has broken records in recent months on world markets, is a lucrative market that fuels all kinds of trafficking, including for jihadists in the neighboring Sahel.
“Apart from gold, there is nothing here for young people. Just civil servants and the informal sector,” says Hermann Dah Sié, a journalist in Bouna, the capital of Bounkani, a poor and troubled border region between Burkina Faso and Ghana.
“The majority of young people here are illegal gold miners. Otherwise, they are unemployed and, increasingly, they turn to theft at night,” laments Angeline Som, 50, president of a local NGO in Doropo. Because “here, everyone is in the gold business.”
To the point of publicly calling, like the leaders of the Koulongo chiefdom (one of the region’s ethnic groups), for “the legalization of the sector or tolerance, as has long been the case in neighboring Burkina Faso,” according to them.
– Blame the rebels –
Gold mining in Bounkani began with the start of the political and military crisis in 2002, when the Ivorian rebellion of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) took control of the region, says Emmanuel (a pseudonym), a former gold miner who was once a key player in the illegal gold mining industry in the regional capital, Bouna.
“Before, no one talked about it. We didn’t know about it. It was the Burkinabè who were doing it here and there,” he explains.
Gold mining then concentrated in Comoé National Park, which was theoretically protected but now open to the four winds and at the mercy of poachers in particular.
“The gold miners would follow the poachers with their machines (metal detectors, ed.), and they would enter the park together for days or even weeks,” explains Emmanuel.
The establishment of an administration and the state in Bouna in 2011 “changed the situation.”
The recent discovery of a gold deposit, estimated at more than 100 tons, by the company Resolute Mining also promises considerable economic prospects for Bounkani. This deposit, on which work will begin in the first quarter of 2026, is expected to generate 2,000 direct jobs and numerous indirect benefits, its promoters promise.
Archive photo for illustrative purposes – August 15, 2016, showing uprooted trees after gold miners passed through a forest near the village of Boré in central Ivory Coast, where illegal gold mining is a concern for authorities. AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO
– “Gone forever” –
Today, the park is well monitored, according to all sources on the ground, and artisanal gold mining is officially banned.
Patrols from the Ivorian Office of Parks and Reserves (OIPR) track down offenders, who are taken back to Bouna and face up to two years in prison and/or a very heavy fine.
And that’s not the only risk. “If you get lost in the park, you’re dead… Without water or food, surrounded by animals, you’ll disappear forever… Many have found themselves trapped in ravines, killed by snakes or buffalo… If you get hurt, no one will come back for you,” Emmanuel continues.
Despite the ban, gold panning continues deep inside the park, and even if it takes two to three days to walk there and back, it’s worth it, according to Emmanuel. Corruption exists, and poachers and gold panners are sometimes informed of the guards’ patrol areas, he says.
“Young people come back from inside the park with enough money to buy motorcycles and even build their own houses,” he says.
They quickly learned how to use metal detectors, often supplied by gold miners from neighboring Burkina Faso: “When the detector beeps, you dig. Up to a meter into the ground. Sometimes you come across iron, things of no interest. If you’re lucky, it’s gold! You can earn a lot!” he explains.
“All ethnic groups, all communities are in the business,” Emmanuel explains. “The sponsors provide the logistics, food, and detectors. They earn a lot of money, up to 70% of the gold. The remaining 30% goes to the digger.”
These sponsors are well known in Bouna, a cosmopolitan city at the crossroads between Burkina Faso and Ghana, where “many West Africans also encourage us to get involved in this business.”
“We need to tell young people that gold mining is too risky. It’s not worth it,” he concludes.
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