1 00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:07,023 "Is, for such ambition, this earth not too small?” - Friedrich Nietzsche 2 00:00:37,771 --> 00:00:41,153 For a long time, people cultivated their land. 3 00:00:43,021 --> 00:00:45,388 There were elephants, lions... 4 00:00:46,211 --> 00:00:49,171 But when they began discovering mineral resources, 5 00:00:49,171 --> 00:00:51,158 they stopped cultivating the land. 6 00:00:52,411 --> 00:00:54,509 They only wanted to mine the ore. 7 00:00:55,986 --> 00:01:01,011 But in 2010, a company closed the area. 8 00:01:01,851 --> 00:01:05,655 They forced the population to leave, there were shootings, chaos... 9 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:09,160 and the people were full of fear and fled. 10 00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:12,360 The company took over. 11 00:01:12,680 --> 00:01:16,360 Now, it is a forbidden area. 12 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:26,138 THE GOLD RUSH 13 00:01:57,961 --> 00:01:59,359 My name is Marcelino Miguel. 14 00:02:00,104 --> 00:02:02,016 I have four children. 15 00:02:06,620 --> 00:02:09,881 I liked searching for rubies but... 16 00:02:10,255 --> 00:02:13,276 the proprietors of the forest forbid it. 17 00:02:14,167 --> 00:02:16,370 And if they find you, you will not be forgiven. 18 00:02:27,791 --> 00:02:30,755 The ruby is a very appreciated stone. 19 00:02:32,901 --> 00:02:36,493 One gram can be worth €1,000 or €2,000... 20 00:02:41,113 --> 00:02:44,472 Even a small stone can solve your problems at home. 21 00:02:46,731 --> 00:02:48,581 This job depends entirely on luck 22 00:02:49,251 --> 00:02:52,361 because when you go in there you can easily die. 23 00:03:28,331 --> 00:03:32,081 Hey... What are you doing? 24 00:03:39,171 --> 00:03:40,238 - Here? - Yes. 25 00:03:40,624 --> 00:03:42,452 I'm looking for stones. 26 00:03:44,931 --> 00:03:46,249 This is dangerous. 27 00:03:49,691 --> 00:03:54,251 This is very dangerous, because in here 28 00:03:55,891 --> 00:03:59,323 the earth can cave in at any time. 29 00:04:09,567 --> 00:04:12,691 My brother Ramadam used to say: 30 00:04:12,691 --> 00:04:17,217 "I'm going to find a thousand stones in that cave!" 31 00:04:18,331 --> 00:04:20,596 There, the place is called Ncoloto. 32 00:04:20,992 --> 00:04:24,612 "I'll even find rubies!" 33 00:04:25,971 --> 00:04:29,444 He went into a cave like this one. 34 00:04:29,721 --> 00:04:32,931 He went in to try and dig. 35 00:04:32,931 --> 00:04:38,731 Since there were lots of stones there, it filled up with people. 36 00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:47,019 He was digging and the earth caved in and he died. 37 00:04:51,211 --> 00:04:52,304 But what can I do? 38 00:04:52,731 --> 00:04:55,908 I have to keep trying. 39 00:04:56,377 --> 00:04:58,559 If I die, it is God's will. 40 00:04:59,931 --> 00:05:04,211 That's why I am here inside this cave 41 00:05:04,211 --> 00:05:08,818 to be able to eat, and to feed my children. 42 00:05:37,371 --> 00:05:42,298 Illegal miners come here, but they are afraid. 43 00:05:58,251 --> 00:06:04,131 When the company discovers there are people prospecting and finding stones, 44 00:06:04,131 --> 00:06:08,208 they go and bury them with their machines. 45 00:06:19,473 --> 00:06:24,754 Last month, 25 miners were buried. They did not come out. 46 00:06:25,312 --> 00:06:26,407 Hey, friend! 47 00:07:37,501 --> 00:07:40,788 THE VALUE OF THE RUBY DEPOSIT IN THE CAPE DELGADO-MONTEPUEZ REGION 48 00:07:40,813 --> 00:07:42,320 IS AROUND 1 BILLION $. 49 00:07:45,735 --> 00:07:50,546 60% OF THE POPULATION LIVES ON LESS THAN $1.25 A DAY. 50 00:08:02,771 --> 00:08:03,646 Wilson. 51 00:08:03,854 --> 00:08:11,224 The police saw me prospecting, and started chasing me in Nañupo. 52 00:08:11,349 --> 00:08:13,855 I fell in a hole, and that's when I hurt myself here. 53 00:08:16,611 --> 00:08:18,282 The pain is very intense. 54 00:08:19,117 --> 00:08:23,325 Even though he denies it, he was a victim of assault. 55 00:08:23,538 --> 00:08:25,701 These marks show he was probably assaulted. 56 00:08:25,726 --> 00:08:29,390 He may not tell the true for fear of retaliation. 57 00:08:29,531 --> 00:08:33,731 Last week there was a massive police presence in these areas. 58 00:08:33,731 --> 00:08:35,451 He was running from the police. 59 00:08:37,877 --> 00:08:40,017 Rubies. A ruby mine. 60 00:08:47,536 --> 00:08:51,213 When they go into the forest, they spend a long time there 61 00:08:51,723 --> 00:08:53,421 dirty, without bathing... 62 00:09:03,451 --> 00:09:05,154 If a woman comes, 63 00:09:05,771 --> 00:09:09,393 around five men sleep with the same woman. 64 00:09:12,437 --> 00:09:18,975 When they come here, they have syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes... 65 00:09:23,051 --> 00:09:25,405 It's normal to treat six patients 66 00:09:25,842 --> 00:09:29,368 for STDs in one day (sexually transmitted diseases). 67 00:09:32,971 --> 00:09:34,768 Are there women in the mine? 68 00:09:35,211 --> 00:09:36,679 Yes, but they don't dig. 69 00:09:38,628 --> 00:09:42,143 He has a sexually transmitted disease. 70 00:09:46,397 --> 00:09:49,714 He doesn't remember who he was with recently. 71 00:09:58,708 --> 00:10:01,681 It's a chaos. They are illegal miners... 72 00:10:03,093 --> 00:10:05,249 They live in precarious conditions. 73 00:10:07,065 --> 00:10:08,071 Money! 74 00:10:08,211 --> 00:10:09,983 The stone! I'm going to show you the stone! 75 00:10:11,411 --> 00:10:12,602 Stones are good. 76 00:10:13,571 --> 00:10:20,028 When they come back from the mines, they consume a lot of drugs and alcohol. 77 00:10:22,451 --> 00:10:26,260 There is a lot of unprotected sex in this area. 78 00:10:27,131 --> 00:10:29,839 This causes a lot of infections: 79 00:10:30,354 --> 00:10:33,578 sexually transmitted diseases, HIV... 80 00:10:55,554 --> 00:10:58,674 Cultivating the land isn't profitable anymore. 81 00:11:00,771 --> 00:11:03,890 The land has nothing left to offer... 82 00:11:05,531 --> 00:11:09,011 there's pollution in the air, in the rivers... 83 00:11:10,251 --> 00:11:14,681 Agriculture does not satisfy daily needs. 84 00:11:16,736 --> 00:11:22,501 Many women stop working the land and go in search of money. 85 00:11:24,211 --> 00:11:27,347 They leave their homes, abandon their husbands... 86 00:11:32,371 --> 00:11:36,277 Two or three days go by, they can't find money... 87 00:11:36,844 --> 00:11:40,211 They are hungry because they stopped cultivating the land... 88 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:44,452 so they have sex to survive. 89 00:11:55,426 --> 00:11:56,426 She's alone... 90 00:11:58,922 --> 00:12:00,063 She comes here every day. 91 00:12:05,731 --> 00:12:10,392 Many young girls leave their homes and come here to sell their bodies 92 00:12:12,761 --> 00:12:13,892 to the miners. 93 00:12:37,162 --> 00:12:38,688 My name is Toni Zeferino. 94 00:12:40,771 --> 00:12:44,661 I've been here for three years, mining for gold. 95 00:12:45,851 --> 00:12:50,455 That's why I know gold, I have a lot of experience. 96 00:13:04,028 --> 00:13:06,194 Gold isn't like rubies. 97 00:13:07,371 --> 00:13:08,799 Gold requires more work 98 00:13:10,611 --> 00:13:11,917 and you don't earn very much. 99 00:13:14,404 --> 00:13:15,764 That's what the work is like here. 100 00:13:16,612 --> 00:13:18,107 It's a man's job. 101 00:14:24,375 --> 00:14:30,615 The boys come here to work, to try and survive. 102 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:54,745 I have a son. He lives with his mother in Nampula. 103 00:14:56,226 --> 00:14:58,219 I haven't seen him for two years... 104 00:14:58,789 --> 00:15:01,085 I don't have money to go and visit him. 105 00:15:18,780 --> 00:15:22,580 Here you work in fear... fear of having to run, to flee. 106 00:15:23,371 --> 00:15:25,401 Suddenly you hear shots... 107 00:15:28,131 --> 00:15:30,551 That's why there is always fighting here. 108 00:15:30,931 --> 00:15:32,733 There are drugs, prostitution... 109 00:15:37,131 --> 00:15:41,125 I'd like to get out of here, but I don't have the means. 110 00:17:27,755 --> 00:17:29,240 I'm searching for gold. 111 00:17:34,971 --> 00:17:35,971 This is gold. 112 00:17:37,052 --> 00:17:40,283 It's difficult to find gold, to know where to look. 113 00:17:40,491 --> 00:17:43,451 You work very hard for very little gold. 114 00:17:43,476 --> 00:17:46,811 Less than half a gram a day. 115 00:17:47,010 --> 00:17:48,991 A gram is 2,000MTs ($25). 116 00:17:49,983 --> 00:17:53,178 They take it far away, and they make lots of money 117 00:17:53,498 --> 00:17:55,474 because they sell it for more. 118 00:17:59,355 --> 00:18:03,088 It seems like there aren't any places left with a lot of gold. 119 00:18:04,757 --> 00:18:08,745 There are only places like this one, without much gold. 120 00:18:11,451 --> 00:18:12,456 The gold is all gone. 121 00:18:21,334 --> 00:18:23,873 In this area there used to be a lot of gold 122 00:18:25,095 --> 00:18:26,881 because a river ran through it. 123 00:18:34,674 --> 00:18:37,710 This was a river. Until now, it was a river. 124 00:18:38,891 --> 00:18:46,244 The river dried up because of so much digging. 125 00:18:46,411 --> 00:18:48,798 There's not even a drop down here. 126 00:18:49,571 --> 00:18:52,431 The people dried it all up. 127 00:18:59,854 --> 00:19:04,196 They say this country is rich... I don't know if it's rich or not. 128 00:19:06,091 --> 00:19:08,439 I'm not rich. My country is rich, but I'm not rich. 129 00:19:08,573 --> 00:19:10,879 I spend more and more time here, in the mines, 130 00:19:10,904 --> 00:19:13,155 but I never achieve anything. 131 00:19:22,891 --> 00:19:25,261 - What are you doing tomorrow? - I'm working. 132 00:19:25,406 --> 00:19:27,748 - Where do you work? - In Nicuita. 133 00:19:35,703 --> 00:19:41,468 I'm here to talk about mercury. You all know what that is, right? 134 00:19:41,764 --> 00:19:44,026 Mercury is sold here. 135 00:19:44,692 --> 00:19:47,806 People bring it from far away. They bring it and they sell it here. 136 00:19:48,989 --> 00:19:49,997 And we buy it. 137 00:19:50,651 --> 00:19:52,513 This is the product. This is mercury. 138 00:19:54,143 --> 00:19:55,143 It's this. 139 00:20:05,211 --> 00:20:09,702 When we use mercury to meld gold, we burn it, right? 140 00:20:10,578 --> 00:20:14,075 And that smoke, when we inhale it, where does it go? 141 00:20:15,794 --> 00:20:17,105 Into our bodies. 142 00:20:19,036 --> 00:20:20,727 And that water, where does it go? 143 00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:26,976 You bathe in it, drink it, cook with it... 144 00:20:27,621 --> 00:20:31,700 We noticed that the food on the bottom was a different color. 145 00:20:32,251 --> 00:20:34,950 We served the food right here because we didn't have plates. 146 00:20:37,188 --> 00:20:40,484 Soon people started having symptoms: 147 00:20:41,578 --> 00:20:43,012 diarrhea, stomach ache... 148 00:20:45,085 --> 00:20:48,024 The water you drink isn't good for you. 149 00:20:51,345 --> 00:20:53,153 It causes a lot of problems. 150 00:20:56,639 --> 00:20:59,370 It's harmful for our bodies. 151 00:21:04,135 --> 00:21:08,728 It can cause tremors in young children. 152 00:21:11,291 --> 00:21:12,712 And in pregnant women 153 00:21:12,737 --> 00:21:16,932 it can cause delays in the development of the fetus. 154 00:21:18,109 --> 00:21:21,255 Their brain may not work properly. 155 00:21:26,679 --> 00:21:30,055 For you, and for all of us in the town, 156 00:21:30,611 --> 00:21:32,512 this mercury is harmful. 157 00:21:36,887 --> 00:21:40,994 It starts when you dump the mercury into the water... 158 00:21:43,331 --> 00:21:46,979 and then it flows into the river... 159 00:21:47,771 --> 00:21:49,585 and the river flows into the sea... 160 00:21:50,702 --> 00:21:55,141 The fishermen go to fish in the sea, then they sell us the poisoned fish. 161 00:21:57,494 --> 00:22:01,731 We want to minimize the use of mercury. 162 00:22:01,756 --> 00:22:06,007 Because mercury is harmful not just for one person, but for many people. 163 00:22:08,551 --> 00:22:10,416 FORCED BY POVERTY, 15 MILLION MINERS EXTRACT 164 00:22:10,441 --> 00:22:13,040 ROUGHLY 500 TONS OF GOLD AROUND THE WORLD EACH YEAR. 165 00:22:13,777 --> 00:22:18,480 TO OBTAIN ONE GRAM OF GOLD, THEY USE 1 – 15 GRAMS OF MERCURY. 166 00:22:19,230 --> 00:22:21,135 THE MERCURY USED IN TRADITIONAL MINING 167 00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,815 REPRESENTS 40% OF MERCURY EMISSIONS ON THE PLANET. 168 00:23:01,184 --> 00:23:05,684 THE GOLD RUSH 169 00:23:46,841 --> 00:23:48,448 medicusmundi thanks all the institutions 170 00:23:48,473 --> 00:23:49,755 that made this film possible, 171 00:23:49,780 --> 00:23:52,560 particularly the Mozambique Ministry of Health (MISAU). 172 00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:55,080 The opinions here express the feelings and experiences 173 00:23:55,105 --> 00:23:57,760 of reps of miners' organizations and non-associated miners. 174 00:23:57,802 --> 00:24:00,480 To provide various standpoints and confirm the information, 175 00:24:00,521 --> 00:24:02,840 we requested interviews with local mining companies. 176 00:24:02,873 --> 00:24:04,640 Our request was turned down. 177 00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:07,400 Many thanks to the staff of medicusmundi in Barcelona, 178 00:24:07,425 --> 00:24:10,280 Maputo and Cape Delgado for making this documentary possible. 179 00:24:10,604 --> 00:24:14,560 Additional archives: 180 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,880 Funding for this documentary was provided by AECID, 181 00:24:16,924 --> 00:24:18,360 as per Agreement 14-CO1-424: 182 00:24:18,385 --> 00:24:20,240 “Strengthening, Advancement and Defense 183 00:24:20,268 --> 00:24:22,120 of Primary Health Care in Mozambique.” 184 00:24:22,147 --> 00:24:24,480 medicusmundi is responsible for the contents, 185 00:24:24,530 --> 00:24:26,640 which do not necessarily reflect AECID's views. 186 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,440 This documentary has been disseminated with the help of the EU. 187 00:24:29,483 --> 00:24:31,693 medicusmundi is solely responsible for the contents, 188 00:24:31,718 --> 00:24:34,156 which should not be deemed to reflect the views of the EU. 189 00:24:38,726 --> 00:24:42,363 Filmed in Mozambique.