The Children of the Coal Mines

200 metres underground, in unhealthy shafts, they dig… they are 9 or 10 years old and they work in the mines of Boyaca, the biggest coal deposit in Colombia. It was in 1993 that a report documented the lives of Jairo, Oscar, Jaime… the mole children. 17 years later, Edouard Bergeon found them and showed them the images they had never seen. “I’m here underground like a mole. Imagine what I’m going to end up like. I started working when I was 10. I’m 32 and I’m still down the mine. I do it for my kids, to give them food and allow them to study.” His children, his wife, his mother discover for the first time the images of Oscar aged 10 pushing his coal barrow. Jaider also has a family, which he only sees at weekends. During the week he digs coal a six-hour drive from his home. Things haven’t ...