Bembou Silaty, Guinea – Mamadou Aliou walks via the small village of Bembou Silaty in northwestern Guinea carrying an irresolvable contradiction.
The 38-year-old works within the environmental well being and security division for a bauxite mining firm, but he’s additionally an activist striving to enhance life in his neighborhood, which frequently means criticising the actions of one other mining firm within the space.
Really helpful Tales
listing of three objectsfinish of listing
“Earlier than these firms arrived, we cultivated our land, and it sustained us,” Aliou advised Al Jazeera.
“We may cowl our every day wants, particularly meals. However now, when a chunk of land is registered and belongs to a mining firm, you don’t have anything there any extra.”
The foreign-linked mining firms are a part of the worldwide scramble for Guinea’s bauxite. The West African nation holds the world’s largest reserves of the ore, which is the supply materials for alumina and finally aluminium, a metallic important for automotive and plane frames, home windows, wind generators, and photo voltaic panels.
Over the previous three a long time, Guinea has multiplied its bauxite manufacturing tenfold. Greater than a dozen initiatives of bauxite manufacturing are presently ongoing within the nation, based on the web cadastre.
As the worldwide vitality transition calls for ever extra aluminium, it has positioned Guinea in a strategically essential place. Roughly 75 p.c of the bauxite exported by the nation over the previous decade has ended up in China, which produces 60 p.c of the world’s aluminium.
Corporations from Russia, america, and the United Arab Emirates have additionally established themselves within the nation to safe the ore. In Bembou Silaty, an Indian firm that started operations in 2019 now holds an exploitation concession till 2034.
Positioned within the prefecture of Telimele (Kindia area), Bembou Silaty has undergone a change since bauxite was found on its land about 5 years in the past.
But, on the bottom, many lament the price: Contaminated water, lack of farmland, and a steep decline in agricultural productiveness.
‘No land, no cash’
Within the conventional bauxite heartlands of Kindia and Boke, the principle roads are in notably good situation, a minimize above the remainder of the nation. Regular jobs in technical roles or transport logistics have created financial alternatives for some Guineans.
But Bembou Silaty stays a quiet, peaceable village with out electrical energy, and farming strategies which can be untouched by mechanisation.
Lower than 2km (1.2 miles) away, nevertheless, the luxurious inexperienced panorama and delicate local weather of the wet season give solution to the electric-powered web site of the Indian mining firm.
There, excavators and vans laden with bauxite consistently traverse the huge, unpaved roads, constructed to accommodate the heavy site visitors, in a loud, busy zone the place the mining economic system bulldozes its method ahead.
Individuals working in technical roles on the mine can earn as much as about $300 a month.
For different locals who make a residing from farming, most don’t have an everyday wage and depend on the yield from their crops.
Throughout Guinea, an estimated half of the inhabitants depends upon agriculture for his or her livelihood.
Locals in Bembou Silaty say each hectare claimed by mining is a hectare misplaced to farming, in a rustic that spent greater than $500m importing rice in 2024.
“They provide you compensation on your land, but it surely’s not sufficient, and in the long run, it’s mismanaged,” Aliou stated.
“Inside a month or two, somebody who acquired 50 or 100 million Guinean francs ($5,700-11,400) has nothing left. No land, no cash. They’ve to start out over, from beneath zero.”
Locals who nonetheless personal land proceed to develop rice, cassava, peanuts and cashews within the village, however they’ve ever much less house and agricultural productiveness is falling.
The village ladies have arrange an affiliation, “Allawalli” (which implies “God assist us” in Fula), to work cooperatively.
‘Not sufficient’
Strolling via the alleys of Bembou Silaty, just a few homes stand out.
They’re made from cement, which withstands the rains higher than the extra frequent mud-brick houses, although many stay unfinished.
Locals say they had been constructed with compensation cash.
Fatoumata Binta Bah, a neighbour of Aliou’s, comes from a household of farmers. They as soon as cultivated cashews, their livelihood.
Then the Indian mining firm began up operations and provided them lower than 50 million Guinean francs (about $5,700) for his or her land. That compensation, paid as a lump sum, appeared like a good sum of money, she says.
However now, the cash is gone, and their new home remains to be incomplete.
“The land they took from us was productive. That’s what we lived on,” stated Bah, 20, as she ready tea over a hearth within the household courtyard.
“Ultimately, it wasn’t sufficient,” she lamented.
The Indian firm didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s questions on the acquisition of land.
In the meantime, on the outskirts of the village, surgical holes drilled into the bottom mark the place mining firms have examined for bauxite – a reminder to the farmers that the affect on the land is felt even earlier than extraction begins.
In a latest report, Djami Diallo, the Guinean minister of the setting and sustainable improvement, acknowledged that every yr, sure firms had their affect research and analysis reviews rejected for failing to adjust to environmental requirements.
Three or 4 firms in Boke, Kindia’s neighbouring area that’s thought of the bauxite capital within the nation, had been stated to be affected. However the minister acknowledged that “simply because firms don’t meet the circumstances to acquire the compliance certificates doesn’t imply that the whole lot stops.”
Clear water, the best problem
Not all houses in Bembou Silaty, a neighborhood of about 5,000, have indoor bathrooms and plumbing. Within the centre of the village, there are communal latrines for many who would not have amenities obtainable of their houses. Showers will be taken in the identical place, utilizing a bucket and water collected from the spring.
One small achieve for the neighborhood for the reason that mining firm’s arrival is a brand new water level within the village. The faucet serves practically all of the residents. Even Aliou makes use of it to fill buckets for his family – for cooking and ingesting – although he says he is aware of the water comprises iron, as contamination happens.
Nonetheless, he considers himself luckier than his pals within the neighbouring village of Koussadji Dow, who depend on now-brown, contaminated river water.
Tala Oury Sow, a dealer and farmer, washes her cooking utensils within the murky river water – a every day wrestle.
She begins talking softly, surrounded by neighbours, however her voice rises to a shout.
“Do you suppose we are able to stay like this?
“We had hoped the mining firm’s arrival would enhance issues, but it surely has gotten worse,” she protested.
“Because the mining firms got here, we’ve had this drawback with the water. The kids get sick, and the dad and mom too,” added Mariama Kindi Diallo, a farmer, in her courtyard.
“The docs inform us to not drink the rain or river water. There are not any roads, no faculty, no cellphone sign. What are we speculated to do? We’re asking for assist to have a dignified life,” she pleaded, as her household and neighbours nodded in settlement.
The Indian firm didn’t reply to requests for touch upon these points.
‘We want refineries right here’
To flee the more and more tough circumstances in villages like Bembou Silaty, some individuals go away the agricultural areas and head to the capital, Conakry.
Bauxite mining so dominates Guinea that one can likelihood upon a driver of one of many trains hauling ore from the mines to the port of Kamsar.
Alpha, who didn’t need his actual title revealed, works for a United States-backed firm and supplies a window into the immense quantity of assets being exported.
“We function six trains of 150 wagons every day,” he stated, explaining that the annual goal for 2025 was to export 17.5 million tonnes of bauxite.
“The federal government desires to alter issues, as a result of the income we make in Guinea proper now are small. We want refineries right here to extend the state’s income,” he added.
Alpha lives close to the coast, the place his job has allowed him to construct a home for his household and obtain a way of life unattainable for many of his compatriots.
The federal government of Mamady Doumbouya, which got here to energy in a 2021 coup, is trying to reorganise the mining sector. It’s urgent traders to course of bauxite inside Guinea, guaranteeing a portion of the worth stays within the nation.
Processing bauxite into aluminium can multiply its value by 37 occasions.
Instability in Iran amid the US and Israel’s struggle has contributed to rising aluminium costs, which surpassed $3,600 per tonne in April.
Doumbouya is about to steer the nation for the subsequent seven years, after profitable the December 2025 elections with practically 87 p.c of the vote. Whereas opponents view him as illegitimate, many Guineans agree on the necessity to reform the mining sector.
Reaching this, nevertheless, requires an enormous enhance in electrical energy era – energy that’s non-existent in villages like Bembou Silaty and unreliable even in Conakry, the place blackouts are frequent when followers and TVs are switched on at night time.
Guinea is working with neighbouring Senegal on an answer: Utilizing Senegalese gasoline to generate sufficient electrical energy to course of its bauxite on African soil. Presently, each international locations export uncooked supplies, whereas jobs and wealth are created elsewhere.
Following the bauxite route
Greater than 3,000km (1,900 miles) away, throughout the ocean, Spain can be part of the Guinean bauxite story.
Parets del Valles, a municipality of 18,000 individuals lower than 30km (19 miles) from Barcelona, represents the journey’s finish.
From the city centre to its industrial outskirts, companies specialising in aluminium are plentiful: Aluminium distribution, carpentry, and window becoming, a lot of them serving family wants.
For Spain, Europe’s largest client of Guinean bauxite, greater than 90 p.c of its imports come from Guinea-Conakry.
The aluminium produced there, primarily within the nation’s north, feeds the automotive business and serves each industrial and home functions.
Parets is one other world in contrast with the bauxite’s level of origin in Guinea.
In Spain, there may be mild, scorching water, paved roads – all the bottom components of a good life. It’s why many say rising numbers of West Africans are arriving in Parets and throughout the Valles Oriental area. That is a part of a broader pattern in Catalonia and Spain, based on the Spanish Nationwide Statistics Institute (INE): The Guinean inhabitants has quadrupled in Spain since 2000 – from 2,700 to 11,000 individuals – and in Catalonia from 1,000 to 4,000.
These figures don’t embody those that go unregistered.
More and more, extra boats are leaving straight from Guinea, in the direction of the Canary Islands and on to mainland Europe. In response to Frontex, the European Union border safety company, extra Guineans arrived within the Canary Islands, Spain, in 2023 (2,324) than within the earlier 13 years mixed. In 2024 and 2025 mixed, one other 6,000 Guineans arrived.
Migrants, predominantly males from Senegal and more and more from Guinea, come alone, settling the place they’ve contacts and job prospects. The most recent arrivals, usually very younger, spend lengthy hours with their cellphones as their sole companion – the one tether to the nation they left behind.
Many left, following the bauxite path, hoping to search out one thing extra within the locations the place their assets are each loved and exploited.
As Aliou, again in Bembou Silaty, says: “Should you examine the bauxite we export with what we get in return, the distinction is big. We achieve virtually nothing. Simply sufficient to outlive.”
This text was produced in collaboration with the Catalan affiliation SETEM Catalunya, promoted by the Join for International Change consortium and Lafede.cat, and with monetary help from the European Union and the Authorities of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya)
