Deep in the pits hewn from the earth dozens of teenage boys slam their hammers into the rock. Other men pan the crushed ore by hand in tubs filled with water and mercury. Uganda does not have many gold mines and most, like this one in Busia, in the east of the country, are neither sophisticated nor especially productive. Yet this small east African nation exports a fantastic trove of the yellow metal…

Read the full story in The Economist.

Photo: Kristof Vadino