The Rupa Gold mine of
Karamoja
The Karamoja sub-region, commonly known as Karamoja, is a region in Uganda. It covers an area of 27,528km and comprises the Kotido District, Kaabong District, Karenga District, Nabilatuk District, Abim District, Moroto District, Napak D ...
,
Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...
is an
artisanal
An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...
(informal) mine located approximately 10 km north of
Moroto Town
Moroto is a town in Moroto District in the Northern Region, Uganda, Northern Region of Uganda. The town serves as the location of the district headquarters.
Location
Moroto is approximately east of Gulu, the largest city in the Northern Region ...
in Uganda’s Karamoja region. After years of instability caused by inter-clan cattle raiding and a decade-long military disarmament campaign in Karamoja, many people in the region have been finding alternatives to their traditional semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyles. One such alternative is mining.
Typically male, miners use rudimentary tools to dig holes reaching up to 10 m underground. The miners then spend up to ten hours a day digging earth from tunnels. The earth is then passed to the surface in homemade containers where it is washed and sieved.
Gold extracted at Rupa is bought on-site by dealers from other regions of Uganda and neighbouring
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
. It is then transferred to either Uganda’s capital,
Kampala
Kampala (, ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,875,834 (2024) and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kampala, Kawempe Division, Kawempe, Makindy ...
, or
Nairobi
Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...
, the Kenyan capital, for resale. In early April 2011, the local price paid for 0.1 grams of gold was around 7000 Ugandan shillings, equivalent to around 2.5 US dollars. Generally, miners say that they extract between 0.05 and 0.1 grams (known locally as a “point”) each day.
[
This local price level was barely half the price level on international commodity markets. In early April 2011, gold was trading at $1,476 per troy ounce, equivalent to $47.45 per gram, or $4.75 per point. The differential between the local and international price reflects the costs involved in transporting output from mines and the profit margins taken by local, regional and global intermediaries. In the absence of official data, estimating the size of the gold deposits at Rupa remains difficult, but local mining officials have said that as many as 10,000 people now depend on the mine for their incomes.][
]
Safety and Child Labour
Anecdotal evidence collected from miners at the Rupa site suggests that injuries and deaths are common. Accidents often occur when unsupported tunnels dug by inexperienced miners collapse, trapping people inside.
Child labour is common, with minors under the age of ten often used to collect water for washing the gold. Whole families sometimes work at the mine, with children absent from school.[
]
Aerial survey and potential industrial extraction
In 2009 Uganda’s government concluded an airborne geophysical study of over 80 percent of the country’s landmass to map mineral deposits. Funded by the World Bank, the project was seen as an important step in developing the country’s extractive sector.
However, due to ongoing security concerns, the survey did not include the Karamoja region.[ As of mid-2011, according to officials at the Department for Geological Survey and Mines, plans had been drawn up to extend the survey to Karamoja, but funding for this extension remained absent.
Although Ugandan officials have expressed hopes that mining in Karamoja will help develop this severely deprived region ][
]
References
{{reflist
Gold mines