Revealing the illegal life of gold miners in Quang Nam

Gold miners in Quang Nam often face gun raids, are treated according to the “law of the jungle” and most are drug addicts…

On April 16, Quang Nam Province police took statements from gold miners who survived the gas attack that killed four people. The gold mine where the victims died was operating illegally, and although it was only a few kilometers from the district center, their lives seemed isolated, with no contact with outsiders.

“Because they were afraid of being implicated, they did not report it and resolved it themselves. Two hours later, perhaps because they discovered that the gold miners were still alive, and many people around came to see, they knew they could not hide it, so they reported it. Otherwise, the incident would have been handled according to the law of the jungle,” said a police officer participating in the rescue.

Considered the gold capital of the country, the mountainous districts of Quang Nam seem to have gold everywhere. Photo: Tien Hung.

After the incident, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Quang Nam province recorded that at least 54 illegal gold miners had died in the past 7 years, mostly due to tunnel collapses. “This is only an incomplete statistic because accidents are often hidden. The owners of illegal gold mines are afraid of being implicated, so after death, the bodies are quickly buried. Gold mines are often isolated in deep forests, so it is difficult for authorities to know about them,” said the leader of the Department of Natural Resources.

Known as the capital of gold, in the mountainous districts of Quang Nam, gold seems to be everywhere. Among them, Phuoc Son district has the largest reserves. The dream of getting rich from gold has attracted thousands of people from all over the country to come here, digging day and night. "Gold miners come from all walks of life, but most of them are involved in drugs. Life in the gold mine seems to be outside the law," said Tung (30 years old), a gold miner who used to work at mine 39, in Phuoc Hoa commune (Phuoc Son district).

Site 39 is known for the tunnel collapse in April 2013 that killed three gold miners from Thai Nguyen. Tung said that this area seems to be isolated from the outside. It takes nearly half a day to get there from the nearest residential area. The owner of the gold mine even blocked the river to transport goods inside to serve the gold miners. All activities are available, hundreds of gold miners here only go outside for a few months, some even go a whole year without contact with outsiders.

Some gold mines have even set up guard posts, not allowing outsiders to enter with signs saying "Restricted area, no entry without permission". Photo: TH

This gold mine is considered “no one in, no one out”, gold miners who want to go out must ask for permission. Local people cannot go inside. Tung said that the gold mine is carefully guarded by guards, right at the beginning of the road leading to the mine, they put up a sign with the words “restricted area, no entry without permission”.

“Gold bandits” who have worked at many gold mines in Phuoc Son for more than 10 years said that the mine owners often hire famous bosses to guard the mining area. Everything in the gold mine is handled according to the “law of the jungle”. Gold mine purges and disputes with guns occur continuously.

“Gold miners not only die from mine collapses, but also from being beaten, shot, and from diseases, HIV… Many die, but how could the government know about it?” Tung said, adding that drugs are sold openly in the gold mines. Because of the hard work, living in the deep forest, and having money, most gold miners are involved in drugs.

According to 2015 statistics from Quang Nam, the whole province had more than 800 HIV cases and nearly 100 cases in Phuoc Son district, most of which were infected during the process of "gold thieves".

Gold miners were often beaten and tortured by the mine owners as in the Middle Ages for not obeying or working inefficiently. Many gold miners could not bear it and tried to escape, but most were hunted down.

In 2014, Pham Van Hao (born in 1997) and Pham Van Cuong (born in 1995) were discovered by locals escaping from a gold mine, so they came to their rescue and reported to the authorities. Working with the police, the two young gold miners said that their family in Thanh Hoa was very poor. Their parents worked hard all year round but still could not support their siblings. Although they had no education, the desire to work and earn money to help their families always urged them, so when an acquaintance suggested it, the two did not hesitate to join nearly 40 other people from Thanh Hoa to Quang Nam to illegally mine gold. Among them, 15 were minors.

These gold miners were sent to Phuoc Thanh commune (Phuoc Son) to work underground. “We were required to work for 6 months to receive our salary at one time, the salary was 3.5 million VND/month, if we worked hard we would get 4 million VND. It was dark, hard, no money and dangerous, so after working for about a month, 10 of us from the same hometown asked to quit,” Hao told the police. After walking nearly 40 km from Phuoc Thanh commune to the district center, these 10 boys met an unknown fellow countryman, a broker who brought them to Bong Mieu gold mine (Phu Ninh district), to work.

Authorities during a raid on "gold thieves". Photo: Tien Hung.

“We had been here for less than 10 days but we were all exhausted and sick, but we still had to work or we would be beaten. Unable to bear it, we ran away after lunch,” Hao said. However, the owner of the gold mine discovered and chased us, so the 10 children split up and ran in different directions. Hao and Cuong ran through the forest for several hours, then ran into a house to ask for food and told the story. The other gold miners were nowhere to be found, and Hao and Cuong were taken care of by the Quang Nam Province Children’s Social Work Center, then sent back to their hometown.

After that incident, at the gold mine in Phuoc Thanh commune, nearly 100 gold miners also walked nearly 50 km of forest road to escape to the district center. When chased by the mine owner, representatives of the gold miners told the authorities that they were exploited and escaped. “We were forced to do hard labor, were treated badly, were often beaten and were not paid. For more than a year, we have been working at a depth of nearly 1,000 m but without a breathing system, death is always lurking. While our daily meals are only cold rice, the main food is salt and wild vegetables…”, the gold miners reported to the police.

Admitting that the crackdown on gold mines has not been drastic enough, Colonel Le Van Hong, Head of the Economic Police Department (PC46, Quang Nam Provincial Police), said that so far, the crackdown has only stopped at seizing gold mining machines and equipment. When the police leave, they return to work as usual...

According to VNE