Zimpapers Logo

Yoliswa Moyo

It was subtle at first. Save for an isolated wooden cabin, a pool table and a few people milling around the area, the ordinary person wouldn’t care much about what was happening at Dubane, a few kilometres out of Gwanda town, along the Gwanda-Beitbridge highway.

Occasionally, there would be women selling their wares to passersby while children played a short distance away. The men that gathered there killed their time on the pool table while loud music blurred from the speakers set just outside one of the wooden cabins.

They would exchange banter while passing around ingudu, with the drink of the day. 

As time went on, the numbers started swelling; more wooden cabins were erected, more women set up stalls to sell their wares while others cooked $1 meals for those who frequented the area.

Top of the range cars would be seen parked there, drawing the attention of the curious eye. Dubane had grown into a shanty “town” of cabins and red soils where otsheketsha, illegal gold panners, had built homes and the enterprising ones had set up shop at what had become an illegal settlement.

Commercial sex workers flourished by night while drug peddlers thrived on this liquid clientele base. Money exchanged hands in what would seem like an ending cycle.

“It was chaotic; I don’t even know where to start. These people just invaded our area and started doing what they wanted. They settled here with no water or toilets, they  didn’t care, all they wanted was the gold,” said Mr Ndumiso Hadebe from Dubane.

He said otsheketsha monopolised the area and villagers felt like their hands were tied.

“There was really nothing we could do except report them to the relevant authorities. But it would seem even they couldn’t control them so we just watched helplessly,” lamented Mr Hadebe.

Villagers have often complained that illegal gold panners expose them to health hazards due to open defecation, particularly now that the country is currently fighting cholera.

Poor hygiene and sanitation are rampant but even that doesn’t seem to be a deterrent.

Another villager, Mrs Siposethu Mguni, said they constantly lived in fear of what would become of them.

“We didn’t know who these people were or where they were coming from. Our bushes are full of illegal gold panners and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be stopping anytime soon, as long as the gold deposits are still there. They’re nomadic — they occupy an area, take what they want and move on to the next,” said Mrs Mguni.

She said they had begun to see a spike in teenage pregnancies and school drop outs with many of the teenagers hanging around otsheketsha.

Villagers feared that their children would be raped on their way to school. Being a resettlement area, schools are a long distance away with annex schools sparsely distributed.

“Some parents had started sending their children to school as far as Colleen Bawn where they would rent houses for them there. Others opted for boarding facilities, just so that their children could be safe. Imagine having to send a child who’s in primary school to rented accommodation by themselves. It was also problematic as some of the children would be abused there,” said Mrs Mguni.

The “town” was not to last forever, however. One day, the wooden cabins were destroyed, like a tornado had swept through the area. There was no telling that there once was a community of people living there.

What remains is a fragile road which experts believe is sitting on a tunnel dug by these illegal gold miners.

“We don’t know what happened exactly. We just woke up one day and the area was a heap of wood. In any case, how does it help us considering that the damage has already been done. They have destroyed our infrastructure and our children live in fear that they might be harmed or the gold panners might come back,” said Ms Constance Moyo, another villager.

It’s not just the Dubane area where the road has suffered. Further down, near Makhado, more cracks were seen along the highway, again caused by illegal gold miners recklessly searching for the yellow metal. 

There’s another tunnel that goes underground and cuts across Vubachikwe Road, posing a danger to motorists, surrounding communities and their livestock.

Illegal gold miners have wreaked havoc along railway lines. They dig pits which are left open and claim the lives of many villagers’ livestock. What used to be thick bushes are now open and barren tracks of lifeless land. Schools have been destroyed and futures compromised because of this selfish ramble.

Illegal gold panners have become a perennial headache for many across the country where they settle in search of the precious metal.

Even they don’t get along among themselves with turf wars and one beef or the other being the order of the day.

The menacing illegal gold panners are notorious for their criminal activities and their unquenchable thirst for violence and blood.

“You can be cooking your food and otsheketsha from another area just come and take the mealie-meal or whatever you’ll be cooking. You don’t ask questions. At times, they show up when we’ve finished dishing up for everyone and just lift the plates as they are. You can’t even fight back because blood can be shed over a plate of isitshwala,” said a gold panner who only identified himself as Mandla.

As a result, a significant number of otsheketsha are malnourished as they have little or no food at their disposal. Many are in and out of hospital with wounds inflicted by dangerous weapons. It’s a rat race whose end is far.

Widespread unregulated gold panning has devastatingly exhausted both the environment and the society.

In Zimbabwe, gold mining is criminalised, but the police and regulatory authorities struggle to enforce compliance.

Zimbabwe has been continuously losing potential revenue as gold produced by the unregulated illegal gold panners rarely finds its way into the official gold buying company, Fidelity Printers. — @Yolisswa