Ghana's ruthless corporate gold rush

Ghana's ruthless corporate gold rush: "Multinational gold mining firms in Ghana are prepared to use extreme violence to protect their property, a BBC investigation has discovered.

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Until then, Sanso had been a typical subsistence farming community living off cocoa bean crops. But the new mining activities transformed their lives.

"There was gold under the farm so they want to mine the place though my father disagreed with them," says Awudu. "They went and brought police, all of them holding guns."

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It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people in Ghana have been evicted from farms to make way for multinational mining interests in the last 20 years.

They are offered very little in return.

Awudu says his father was offered 500,000 cedi ($50) in compensation.

'Yes, it's small money,' he says. 'It couldn't take care of us. But we went to the company. They refused to take us as workers.

He says he was left with only one option, to become a 'galamsay' - an illegal miner on company land."

(Via BBC News.)