By Adam Nossiter and Yiting Sun
The New York Times
DAKAR, Senegal — The lucky ones have hidden out on cocoa farms and in Chinese-owned companies, surviving on yams and water, moving about constantly and trembling at the prospect of being discovered by Ghana’s security forces. The unlucky ones have been beaten, robbed and swept up by soldiers.
A dream of wealth in a far-off land has been turned on its head for hundreds of Chinese gold miners in Ghana. At least 169 of them were rounded up by the government this month, accused of sneaking into the country and overstaying visas to illegally mine one of Africa’s richest gold fields.
“We have no food, no water, no sleep,” a Chinese migrant said as she hid from the government on a cocoa farm late last week, adding that more than 100 others were there too, fearing arrest. Now the group has fled again, she said, hoping to make it safely back home. “Everyone is scrambling for a way to go back to China.”