Guaire miners

The Guaire River Miners, also known as Guaire River Garimpeiros, is the name given to the people who search for metals in the Guaire River, a 72-kilometer-long river in Caracas, Venezuela that is highly contaminated with sewage. The miners are mainly minors, homeless people or blue-collar workers who lost their jobs due to the shutdown of government works or whose salaries are not enough to subsist and do not want to resort to crime. Despite being a practice that dates back to at least 1994, as of 2016 the number of people engaged in this trade increased to dozens and even hundreds during the Venezuelan economic crisis, characterized by hyperinflation and shortages.^[1]