Central African Republic: a gold mine buries men who came to save their families

On Tuesday 18 August 2026, a landslide swallowed an artisanal gold mine in the village of Zamboye, in western Central African Republic, some fifty kilometres from Baboua and a few steps from the Cameroonian border. The prosecutor of Baboua attributes the disaster to the collapse of several underground tunnels and has opened an investigation; the authorities have temporarily closed the site.

The toll is heavy and disputed. The Ministry of Mines, which came to the scene the following day, counted 49 dead (34 Central Africans, 13 Cameroonians, 2 Chadians) and seven injured evacuated to the hospital in Baboua. Rescuers, the Red Cross and the mining associations, for their part, speak of more than a hundred bodies recovered; Cameroonian media report at least 107 remains, and a second landslide is said to have occurred after the arrival of the rescuers and the inhabitants. Many are still missing beneath the rubble, and the count may rise.

These are, for the most part, very young people. A municipal official confides: « To find them alive would be a miracle. We are heartbroken to see young men and young women perish who came to the mine to wrench their families from despair. » A relative of one victim testifies: « We could not find our brother; he is still under the earth, buried. We are forced to leave with empty hands. » A discalced Carmelite of the diocese of Bouar, present in the country for forty-four years, denounces a brutal exploitation, without safety or social protection, which draws children far from school and their families by the lure of gold, a gram of which can be worth fifty thousand francs.

What the Church has always taught

The fifth commandment does not forbid only killing by one’s own hand. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that a man is guilty of homicide « through imprudence, and for want of having taken the precautions and the cares necessary » to avoid the death of another, and that it is likewise forbidden « to contribute thereto by one’s counsels, by one’s means, by one’s help or in any manner whatsoever ». The life of the poor man is protected there as much as that of the powerful: « the law forbids murder to all the world. It excepts no one; neither rich, nor poor. »

And Scripture has long known what drives men into these galleries. « Many have been brought to fall for gold, and the beauty thereof hath been their ruin », says Ecclesiasticus; « Gold is a stumblingblock to them that sacrifice to it: woe to them that eagerly follow after it, and every fool shall perish by it. » And Saint Paul warns that « they that will become rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil », for « the desire of money is the root of all evils ».

The measurement

We do not pronounce upon souls; we judge acts. To send men, and children, down into tunnels without prop or protection, to draw a metal from them, is knowingly to expose the life of one’s neighbour in contempt of the « precautions and the cares necessary » that the law of God demands. That the death was not willed does not suffice to acquit those who created its conditions: the tradition says so without detour. The investigation now opened will establish the human responsibilities; the commandment, for its part, has already spoken.

There remains the gold, which has « brought many to fall ». There is no fatality in these deaths: there is a metal set up as an idol, and the lives of the poor offered for a few grams. The greed that organises this is the one the Apostle names « the root of all evils »; the misery that casts its victims there cries out to God and to men of good will, whose help a local official implores.

For the faithful

We owe these dead first the charity that does not stop at the tomb: to pray for the repose of their souls, for to bury the dead and to succour the living are works that the same commandment lays upon us. We owe them next the truth: no wealth is worth the life of a man made in the image of God, and a society that sells its children to the mine has already yielded to the idol. May the mourning of Zamboye restore to us what gold makes us forget: the price of a soul.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment. Ecclesiasticus XXXI, 5-7; First Epistle to Timothy VI, 9-10 (Douay-Rheims, Vulgate).