The country has vast reserves of the ore that is a source material for aluminium. But citizens still languish in poverty.
Bembou Silaty, Guinea – Mamadou Aliou walks through the small village of Bembou Silaty in northwestern Guinea carrying an irresolvable contradiction.
The 38-year-old works in the environmental health and safety department for a bauxite mining company, yet he is also an activist striving to improve life in his community, which often means criticising the actions of another mining company in the area.
“Before these companies arrived, we cultivated our land, and it sustained us,” Aliou told Al Jazeera.
“We could cover our daily needs, especially food. But now, when a piece of land is registered and belongs to a mining company, you have nothing there any more.”
The foreign-linked mining companies are part of the global scramble for Guinea’s bauxite. The West African nation holds the world’s biggest reserves of the ore, which is the source material for alumina and ultimately aluminium, a metal essential for car and aircraft frames, windows, wind turbines, and solar panels.
Over the past three decades, Guinea has multiplied its bauxite production tenfold. More than a dozen projects of bauxite production are currently ongoing in the country, according to the online cadastre.
As the global energy transition demands ever more aluminium, it has placed Guinea in a strategically crucial position. Approximately 75 percent of the bauxite exported by the country over the past decade has ended up in China, which produces 60 percent of the world’s aluminium.
Companies from Russia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates have also established themselves in the country to secure the ore. In Bembou Silaty, an Indian company that began operations in 2019 now holds an exploitation concession until 2034.
Located in the prefecture of Telimele (Kindia region), Bembou Silaty has undergone a transformation since bauxite was discovered on its land about five years ago.
Yet, on the ground, many lament the cost: Contaminated water, loss of farmland, and a steep decline in agricultural productivity.
In the traditional bauxite heartlands of Kindia and Boke, the main roads are in notably good condition, a cut above the rest of the country. Steady jobs in technical roles or transport logistics have created economic opportunities for some Guineans.
Yet Bembou Silaty remains a quiet, peaceful village without electricity, and farming methods that are untouched by mechanisation.
Less than 2km (1.2 miles) away, however, the lush green landscape and mild climate of the rainy season give way to the electric-powered site of the Indian mining company.
There, excavators and trucks laden with bauxite constantly traverse the wide, unpaved roads, built to accommodate the heavy traffic, in a noisy, busy zone where the mining economy bulldozes its way forward.
People working in technical roles at the mine can earn up to about $300 a month.
For other locals who make a living from farming, most don’t have a regular wage and rely on the yield from their crops.
Across Guinea, an estimated half of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood.
Locals in Bembou Silaty say every hectare claimed by mining is a hectare lost to farming, in a country that spent more than $500m importing rice in 2024.
“They give you compensation for your land, but it’s not enough, and in the end, it’s mismanaged,” Aliou said.
“Within a month or two, someone who received 50 or 100 million Guinean francs ($5,700-11,400) has nothing left. No land, no money. They have to start over, from below zero.”
Locals who still own land continue to grow rice, cassava, peanuts and cashews in the village, but they have ever less space and agricultural productivity is falling.
The village women have set up an association, “Allawalli” (which means “God help us” in Fula), to work cooperatively.
Walking through the alleys of Bembou Silaty, a few houses stand out.
They are made of cement, which withstands the rains better than the more common mud-brick homes, though many remain unfinished.
Locals say they were built with compensation money.
Fatoumata Binta Bah, a neighbour of Aliou’s, comes from a family of farmers. They once cultivated cashews, their livelihood.
Then the Indian mining company started up operations and offered them less than 50 million Guinean francs (about $5,700) for their land. That compensation, paid as a lump sum, seemed like a decent amount of money, she says.
But now, the money is gone, and their new house is still incomplete.
“The land they took from us was productive. That’s what we lived on,” said Bah, 20, as she prepared tea over a fire in the family courtyard.
“In the end, it wasn’t enough,” she lamented.
The Indian company did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions on the purchase of land.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the village, surgical holes drilled into the ground mark where mining companies have tested for bauxite – a reminder to the farmers that the impact on the land is felt even before extraction begins.
In a recent report, Djami Diallo, the Guinean minister of the environment and sustainable development, stated that each year, certain companies had their impact studies and evaluation reports rejected for failing to comply with environmental standards.
Three or four companies in Boke, Kindia’s neighbouring region that is considered the bauxite capital in the country, were said to be affected. But the minister acknowledged that “just because companies do not meet the conditions to obtain the compliance certificate does not mean that everything stops.”
Not all homes in Bembou Silaty, a community of about 5,000, have indoor toilets and plumbing. In the centre of the village, there are communal latrines for those who do not have facilities available in their homes. Showers can be taken in the same place, using a bucket and water collected from the spring.
One small gain for the community since the mining company’s arrival is a new water point in the village. The tap serves nearly all the residents. Even Aliou uses it to fill buckets for his household – for cooking and drinking – though he says he knows the water contains iron, as contamination occurs.
Still, he considers himself luckier than his friends in the neighbouring village of Koussadji Dow, who rely on now-brown, contaminated river water.
Tala Oury Sow, a trader and farmer, washes her cooking utensils in the murky river water – a daily struggle.
She starts speaking softly, surrounded by neighbours, but her voice rises to a shout.
“We had hoped the mining company’s arrival would improve things, but it has gotten worse,” she protested.
“Since the mining companies came, we’ve had this problem with the water. The children get sick, and the parents too,” added Mariama Kindi Diallo, a farmer, in her courtyard.
“The doctors tell us not to drink the rain or river water. There are no roads, no school, no phone signal. What are we supposed to do? We are asking for help to have a dignified life,” she pleaded, as her family and neighbours nodded in agreement.
The Indian company did not respond to requests for comment on these issues.
To escape the increasingly difficult conditions in villages like Bembou Silaty, some people leave the rural areas and head to the capital, Conakry.
Bauxite mining so dominates Guinea that one can chance upon a driver of one of the trains hauling ore from the mines to the port of Kamsar.
Alpha, who did not want his real name published, works for a United States-backed company and provides a window into the immense volume of resources being exported.
“We operate six trains of 150 wagons each day,” he said, explaining that the annual target for 2025 was to export 17.5 million tonnes of bauxite.
“The government wants to change things, because the profits we make in Guinea right now are small. We need refineries here to increase the state’s revenue,” he
📰 மூல செய்தி (Source): https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/6/1/before-the-land-sustained-us-who-benefits-from-guineas-bauxite-wealth?traffic_source=rss
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