Conflict between industrial mining operations and local communities in Burkina Faso has been exacerbated by instances of artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) operations, sometimes consisting of tens of thousands of people being forced off land so that industrial mining operations can proceed. In the city of Houndé in May 2022, significant tensions between artisanal miners and industrial mines escalated to violence following government efforts to clear ASGM miners from a Houndé gold site for an industrial mining operation. ASGM miners claimed they had been working in the area first and the violent protest that ensued resulted in the deaths of two miners. Such tensions are exacerbated by the presence of terrorist groups’ involvement in gold mining: In 2018, the governor of the Est region ordered the closure of artisanal mining sites to cut off sources of funding for terrorist groups. Consequently, disgruntled miners turned toward jihadists, who reopened certain mines. Similarly, in the Soum province, in the Sahel region, communities appear to have been brought closer to jihadists following counterterrorism operations in early 2019, during which gold mining equipment and gold were seized by state security forces.