The death toll from a gold mine collapse in Zamboye, western Central African Republic, is now in dispute between officials and people on the ground. The government's official count stands at 49 dead. Local Red Cross volunteers, mining association officials, and residents say the real number is over 100.
The low-tech, artisanal mine collapsed on a Tuesday morning in the village of Zamboye, in the Nana-Mambere prefecture near the Cameroon border. Mines Minister Rufin Benam-Beltoungou visited the site and told independent broadcaster Radio Ndeke Luka that 35 Central Africans, 13 Cameroonians, and two Chadians were confirmed dead as of Thursday, two days after the collapse.
That official figure sits well below what people closer to the disaster are reporting. A Red Cross volunteer involved in the relief effort told Stream26 News sources more than 100 bodies had already been recovered by Wednesday, a figure independently echoed by a senior official at a local mining association and by residents who lost family members at the site.
Rescue crews are still pulling bodies from the rubble, though local workers say the recovery effort lacks the equipment and expertise a disaster of this scale requires. One miner at the site, who lost his brother and a friend in the collapse, described the rescue operation as under-resourced for what it's facing.
The government has suspended mining at Zamboye until further notice and opened an investigation into what caused the collapse. Artisanal, small-scale mining is a major source of income across the region, but has repeatedly proven dangerous due to limited safety oversight — this is not the first fatal collapse at an unregulated mine in Central Africa in recent years.