AFP, SHIWA MINE, Afghanistan
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In Afghanistan’s northeastern Badakhshan province, dozens of excavators operate day and night to extract gold from the mountains where villagers and their livestock once roamed. Thousands of miners are deployed across the Shiwa area, extracting gold for investors nationwide. Some residents in the area have profited from the gold rush, only to regret it later, such as Muhammad Amin. “Before, the river was deep, the water was clean,” the farmer from Pul-e-Ziri Ban valley said.
An goldsmith melts gold in Fayzabad, Afghanistan, on Tuesday last week.
Since mining got underway, “the water of the river is not drinkable; you can’t even wash your body with that water,” he said.The grass along the riverbank “has all gone” and farming is no longer possible due to “the wind and dust,” Amin said, with tears in his eyes.
