Mauritania is the latest country in the Sahara where gold has been found. Thousands are hoping to strike it rich – but digging for gold is dangerous and impacts upon human health and the environment.

This is because to find gold, you need to dig extremely deep holes in the ground; and to extract the precious metal, you need toxic mercury. But that doesn’t put the gold diggers off at all. They compete for the best mining sites and within a short space of time, an entire settlement has sprung up on the desert sands. Michele Cattani went to take a look.

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