The reason for the explosion in Poni province used to be now not but identified, Poni’s prime commissioner Antoine Douamba informed state tv.
Pictures confirmed a big blast web page of felled bushes and destroyed tin properties. Our bodies lay at the flooring, coated in mats.
It used to be now not transparent precisely what sort of gold mining went on on the web page. Burkina Faso is house to a few main gold mines run through world firms, but in addition to masses of smaller, casual websites that function with out oversight or law.
Kids often paintings in those so-called artisanal mines; injuries are commonplace.
Burkina Faso, one of the most international’s least evolved nations, is beneath assault from Islamist teams connected to al Qaeda and Islamic State who search keep an eye on of mining websites as a way to fund their violent assaults.
A CNN investigation discovered that the killings had been perpetrated through youngsters — some as younger as 12.
Monday’s blast used to be masses of miles from the place those teams normally function and there used to be no signal that Islamist militants had been concerned.
Burkina Faso loses as much as 20 heaps of gold, value round $1 billion at the open marketplace yearly via casual mining and exports, officers informed CNN.