By Mohamed Konneh
The Jong River used to be clear. Grandmothers in Bo District still talk about it. “We drank from it. We washed gari in it. The stones at the bottom were white, not brown,” says Mama Fatmata, 62. Today, when you stand on the bridge at Sumbuya, the water moves slow and thick, the color of milo. No fish. No children swimming. Just silence.
Taia River in Taiama-Southern Sierra Leone
That color has a name in the villages now: “dorty brown”. Illicit Mining in Sierra Leone, is eating the rivers.
A stranger comes to a village in Sumbuya, Tonkolili, Kono, or Kailahun with a pump, a generator, and promises. “There’s gold under your farm. We’ll pay you huge amount of money today. Tomorrow you’ll be rich.”
The land is leased. Trees are cut. Then the machines arrive. High-pressure water pumps blast riverbanks. Mercury and other chemicals are poured in to bind the gold. The muddy waste – called “tailings” – gets dumped straight back into the stream.
EPA crackdown on illegal miners
Within weeks, a river that fed 10 villages turns brown. The water turns to poison. Mercury and cyanide is used to extract gold so they don’t disappear. They sink into the riverbed. Farmers downstream plant rice in that water. Fish eat it. Children bathe in it. The Sierra Leone Environment Protection Agency has found mercury levels 40x above WHO safe limits in some rivers near mining pits.
The Jong, Sewa, and Moa rivers are the veins of Sierra Leone’s agriculture. When tailings choke the rivers, irrigation channels clog. Rice fields that fed families for generations now growing stunted plants. In Kono, farmers call it “white rice with black roots” – the plant grows but the grain is empty.
Guma Valley, which supplies Freetown, draws from the Western Area Mountains. But smaller towns aren’t so lucky. In Tongo Field, women now walk 3km further every day because the stream behind their homes smells like chemicals. Plastic and bottle water cost money most families don’t have.
A river without oxygen is a river without life. The mud from mining smothers fish eggs. Otters, river crabs, and kingfishers leave. For communities that depend on fishing, it’s not just food lost – it’s income, culture, and protein gone. Without tree roots holding riverbanks, and with banks blasted by pumps, the rivers change course. In 2022, part of the Sewa Riverbank collapsed near Mattru Jong, swallowing farmland. The river is literally eating the land that feeds people.
This is happening because people don’t care and the Sierra Leone Government itself is not taking the action needed to put a stop to this menace.
Also weak enforcement by the Mines and Mineral Resources Ministry and the Environmental Protection Agency don’t have enough officers, boats, or fuel to patrol every creek in Lake Sonfo, Kono and Kailahun respectively.
There is also the lack of alternatives livelihood for locals who aid illegal miners as few jobs exist in remote mining communities besides farming, which is now failing because the rivers are dying.
Illegal riverbed and dredge mining severely damage Sierra Leone’s water systems. Water from rivers used by communities for domestic purpose continue to be affected, while dirt and sand choke aquatic life. Though the government has banned dredge mining to protect communities, yet the situation continues.
Rivers across the country impacted by these mining activities include: Rokel (Seli) River. Located in the Tonkolili and Bombali districts, it suffers from heavy illegal riverbed and dredge mining.
Pampana River also running through the Tonkolili District, faces severe degradation from mining, deforestation, and water pollution.
Same for Taia River, located in southern Sierra Leone, this river has been heavily polluted by mining operations causing toxic, muddy waters.
Sewa River that flows through the diamond-rich eastern province, has suffered from extensive gold and diamond dredging mining activities.
