GHAZIABAD DISTRICT, Afghanistan: In the jagged Hindu Kush in eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of men dug into the rocky bed of the Kunar River searching for a few grams of gold dust as an alternative source of income.
At the foot of imposing peaks, some still covered in snow in April, they toiled near the border with Pakistan to find the valuable glinting specks in a country where wages are low.
Below a village of mud-brick houses and small terraced wheat plots in Kharwalu, Kunar province, they dug into a dry section of the riverbed before sifting through their piles of rocks using river water.
Fifty-year-old Shahzahdah Gollalah was among the gold prospectors, having abandoned construction work a seven-hour drive from his home in Kabul. “There are not many job opportunities in the country, and in this way, we have created work for ourselves,” said the father of eight.
But “the gold nuggets we find are usually smaller than a grain of wheat,” he added.
Downstream, in Ghaziabad, hundreds of men hacked into the mountain with picks, then carried a sack down on their backs along a steep slope and emptied it onto a sieve to filter gold from the sand.
Others scooped river water into yellow jerrycans attached to long wooden handles, pouring it over the sieve so that the smaller stones, which may contain gold flakes, slid down onto a mat. A nugget would sometimes appear in a metal pan after two further rounds of sifting.
Gul Ahmad Jan, 35, said he can earn a substantial amount in just a week.
“We can get up to about one gram of gold,” which can fetch up to 8,000 Afghanis ($125), he told AFP.
Afghanistan´s resources were rarely exploited during years of conflict, although a Kunar official said gold panning has happened there for more than a decade.
