Gold Fever Grips Uganda

Sep 3, 2015 | Rodney Muhumuza
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The hunt for gold takes the men 100 metres underground, past contraptions of wood and rope rigged to function like pulleys, past hard rock that they attack day and night with demolition hammers. When they emerge at the end of a shift, the miners carry stone samples that will be examined for the dark veins that suggest presence of gold. The gold rush is on in a big way in this central Ugandan district of Mubende. So big that tens of thousands of people make their livelihood from it. Makeshift tents of blue tarps dot green hills pockmarked by pools of muddy water where ore is washed, separating the gold.