MASUMBIRI, Sierra Leone (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When the Chinese gold miners came to Masumbiri town in northern Sierra Leone, everyone lined up for jobs.
Teenagers lied about their age. Women and girls went to cook and clean at the miners’ camp, a gated compound on a nearby mountainside overlooking rice fields.
Dayu, a private company that started working in Sierra Leone last year, was just the latest in a line of Chinese firms drawn to the mineral-rich ground of the West African state’s Tonkolili district in search of gold.
“The people were happy at first because of the employment,” said Hassan Tholley, Masumbiri’s weary-looking chief, sitting on his porch alongside village elders in the dirt-road town.
Hundreds of young men in hard hats were soon bringing home pay checks and the town of 5,000 people had a cell signal and water pumps for the first time – all courtesy of Dayu.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-leone-mining-rights/no-pot-of-gold-for-locals-as-china-mines-sierra-leone-idUSKCN1VC0IM