Dozens killed in gold mine collapse in western Central African Republic near Cameroon border

At least 30 people have been killed after an artisanal gold mine collapsed in western Central African Republic, officials said. The accident happened in the village of Zamboye, a few kilometres from Garoua-Boulai in eastern Cameroon, near the border between the two countries. Rescue and recovery work was still under way on Wednesday, with local officials saying more people may remain trapped underground.

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Souleymane Bi, the deputy mayor of Nana-Mambere prefecture, said rescuers and residents pulled 30 bodies from the collapsed mine over several hours. He said injured miners were receiving treatment, but did not give a final toll. A local civil servant told AFP that about 40 people died at the site, while Baboua local official Laurent Ngon Baba said it was still difficult to establish a formal count.

Cedric Mbango, a miner at the site, described the collapse as catastrophic and said other people were still buried. Government spokesman Evariste Ngamana expressed sympathy for the families of the victims and said authorities were working to provide relief and assistance to those affected. The collapse has again drawn attention to the dangers of artisanal mining in the Central African Republic, where several thousand people work in small-scale extraction outside government control.

Such sites often lack basic safety protections, and accidents can be fatal when the ground gives way. The incident is significant because mining is an important source of income in parts of the country, but it is also one of the most hazardous forms of work. The Central African Republic has seen repeated deadly collapses at informal mining sites, including a fatal accident in June at the Be-Mbari gold mining site on the Cameroon border.

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Earlier this year, a landslide killed seven people at a mine in Ngourroum in the west, and another 20 were killed in February in Gordi in the northeast. The repeated accidents underline the scale of the safety challenge facing miners and local authorities. The location of the collapse near the Cameroon border also matters because the area is part of a wider cross-border mining zone where workers and traders move between communities on both sides.

Local reporting indicated the site was in Zamboye, close to Garoua-Boulai, which places the disaster in a region where artisanal extraction is common. The differing tolls given by officials and local sources suggest the full scale of the disaster may still be unclear. What remains uncertain is the final death toll and whether more bodies will be recovered as rescue work continues.

Authorities have not yet said what caused the collapse, and no detailed account of the mine's condition has been given. The next developments to watch are the completion of recovery operations, any official confirmation of the number of dead and injured, and whether the government announces further support for affected families and miners.

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