Research by one Ghanaian non-governmental organisation found that 250 rivers in mining communities had been polluted by cyanide and heavy metals. This month the government expressed its concern about the rate at which water bodies were being contaminated.
"This [illegal mining] doesn't help us at all," said Kweku Gyaminah, a traditional healer in Manso Abodom, who makes more than £1 000 a week from trading gold mined by villagers – many of them children – on the fringes of the illegal Chinese-run mine operated by Huang and his colleagues.
"Now our drinking water is all polluted, the farms [are] all gone and we haven't had any benefit from that."
Resentment towards the role of foreigners in mining in local communities is widespread, with frequent attacks by Ghanaians against increasingly heavily armed Chinese miners. The Chinese are also accused of assaulting Ghanaians, whom they employ to operate their machinery.
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