Women climb granite plateaus at the Pissy mine in Ouagadougou on January 28, 2022 (AFP/JOHN WESSELS)
The shrill noise of hammers and chisels mingles with the noise of the city: in the middle of Ouagadougou, men, women and children are busy in the huge crater of the Pissy granite mine, to earn a few euros.
In 40 years, this vacant lot located in the district of Pissy, in the middle of roads and houses, has gradually become a gigantic hole tens of meters deep, dug with the strength of the arms.
From the top of the crater, you can see a woman below who is hoisting granite slabs weighing several kilos on her head.
Waiting for pay at the Pissy mine, January 29, 2022 (AFP / JOHN WESSELS)
Like her, dozens of convicts make an incessant ballet back and forth, often simply wearing flip-flops, on the narrow, steep path that rises from the bottom of the quarry.
In this Mad Max style setting, everyone’s role is well defined.
At the bottom of the hole, “plot owners” sell blocks of granite, others are paid to bring them to the surface for women and teenagers who crush them into small pebbles before selling them.
Everyone makes a small profit, usually one or two euros a day.
The transport of granite plates, at the Pissy mine on January 29, 2022 (AFP / JOHN WESSELS)
“With this money I have to feed the children, pay for their school, it’s really difficult. I’ve been here for 10 years and so far I can’t make it. It’s really pitiful”, tells AFP , Abarat Nikiéma by crushing granite.
The pieces will go to construction sites to make buildings, slabs or roads.
It is 9 a.m. this Saturday morning, when suddenly a swarm of women, sometimes with babies on their backs, come running with their basins filled with pieces of granite on their heads.
– Accidents and illnesses –
The buyers are there and they hasten to dump their “harvest” to pocket the few CFA francs that will feed the family.
The Pissy mine on January 29, 2022 (AFP/JOHN WESSELS)
The smell of burnt tires quickly hits the throat. Because at the bottom of the quarry, to break the granite, the “miners” use the D system: a mixture of truck tires and scrap metal that burns for days to weaken the stone and thus be able to break it.
Maxime Sidibé is one of them. His two-year-old daughter by his side, he recounts the difficult conditions of his daily life.
“There are serious injuries, people cut by stones, a hammer blow, splinters in the eyes. There are people who slip on the descent and also a lot of illnesses”, he confides.
Breaking stones, at the Pissy mine, January 29, 2022 (AFP / JOHN WESSELS)
Here, no one wears a mask, helmet or special protection and everyone breathes in toxic fumes all day long.
Last Sunday, the miners heard shots in the Lamizala camp which adjoins the quarry.
The beginning of the mutinies which led to a coup the next day did not disturb the daily life of this wild mine.
“We were scared, but we continued! We have no choice!”, smiles Marcel Koala, a granite salesman.
© 2022 AFP
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