The night-walkers of Uganda

 

 


 


 
 

 
 


 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 

 
 

 
 
 
Add some more ideas of your own and then skim-read the article to find the answers.
How many words connected to gold can you think of in two minutes? Write them in the box below.
What can we make from gold? e.g. watches
What else is gold used for? e.g. dental fillings
Gold
Mongolia
mine
machine
human rights
soldier
policemen
bowl
newspapers
thief
mother
goat
smuggle
poverty
nomad
South Africa
jewellery
murder
nugget
shell
wealth
museum
arrest
turtle
art 
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Prospectors and ‘ninja’ miners rush to 
the east’s El Dorado
Central Asia’s gold fever brings rapid economic 
growth as well as pollution and violence
Jonathan Watts in Ogoomor
Wednesday October 10, 2007
Enkhmaa – a middle-aged mother and illegal 
gold miner – explains why she is afraid to go out 
on the street with a green plastic bowl. Three 
days ago, she says, the Mongolian police beat 
and imprisoned her for walking too close to a 
foreign-owned mine. “They chased after me in 
a car. When they caught me, they dragged me 
inside, they hit me on the face, pulled my hair 
and beat my leg with a truncheon,” she says.
Ogoomor, where Enkhmaa lives, is probably the 
only town in the world where the police might 
arrest and beat you for carrying a bowl. It is a 
bizarre side effect of a Mongolian gold rush that 
is causing problems between nomadic miners 
and foreign companies. 
Ogoomor is Mongolia’s Wild West, a dusty 
town of miners and nomads, tents and wooden 
shacks, karaoke discos, internet cafes and 
police cells. From Ulan Bator, it is a seven-hour 
drive across vast plains inhabited only by a few 
nomads and their herds of sheep and goats. The 
town did not exist 20 years ago, but reports of 
giant nuggets in the nearby hills started a gold 
rush that attracted several thousand prospectors 
– legal and illegal.
The area around Ogoomor has been called the 
Mongolian El Dorado. The town is located in 
the Zaamar valley, where geologists estimate, 
there is at least 100 tonnes of gold. Russian and 
local firms have bought up concessions to mine
the land. 
Until recently, thousands of Mongolians 
searched illegally through the earth for small 
pieces of gold missed by the mining companies’ 
giant machines. To do this, they used green 
plastic bowls, which they carry on their backs 
like a shell. This appearance gives them their 
nickname – ‘ninja’ – after the Teenage Mutant 
Ninja Turtles cartoon.
Many were former nomads, but now the gold 
rush has brought students, vets and taxi drivers 
from Ulan Bator. They have joined the ninjas, not 
just in Ogoomor but in other gold towns across 
the country. Today, it is estimated that there are 
between 30,000 to 100,000 people searching 
for gold in these areas. This has created a huge 
black market for gold – most of it is probably 
smuggled across Mongolia’s 3,000 mile border 
with China.
For years, the ninjas were tolerated. In Mongolia, 
three-quarters of the 2.9m population live on less 
than $2 a day, and so searching for gold was a 
way to ease poverty and unemployment.
But a Russian mining company asked for new 
security measures last year after thousands of 
ninjas invaded one of its mines, beat the guards, 
destroyed equipment and stole gold. Arrests 
are now common, local people say. “We live in 
constant fear,” says Amarjargal. “We can’t even 
take a green bowl onto the street, and if we 
have dirty clothes, or muddy shoes, the police
arrest us.”
“It is hard to find any family that hasn’t had 
someone arrested,” said an elderly woman called 
Sunjee (most Mongolians only use one name). 
“The police have taken people younger than 16 
and older than 60.”
When the ninjas search for gold they are 
stealing. The areas are the property of the 
Russian concession holders so the arrests are 
legal. But the police crackdown is frightening the 
residents who say they are pulled from their beds 
at night, chased as they walk down the street or 
arrested at checkpoints without any real evidence 
against them.
Visitors to Ogoomor have been shocked at the 
changes in Mongolia, which is known as Asia’s 
most democratic nation. But this is not a black-