Pandemic panners: Indonesians hunt for gold in desperate times

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With the coronavirus devastating jobs across the country, desperate Indonesians are flocking to illegal gold mines as the soaring price of the precious metal overrides the risk to their lives and the environment. | AFP

Father-of-two Mustafa is among the hundreds who play a daily game of cat-and-mouse with authorities in the restive Papua region as they pan for nuggets in a river near US-based Freeport’s sprawling Grasberg site — one of the world’s biggest gold mines.

Fear of arrest is ever-present and so is being caught in the middle of deadly fights between security forces and independence-seeking rebels locked in a decades-old insurgency. The arduous job also carries the risk of catching the coronavirus or skin infections from wading through waters chock full of waste from the nearby mine.“This is very dangerous for our health. I and some of my friends have skin diseases,” Mustafa said. “But thank god, so far no one has got the virus.

 

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