Five thousand diggers pack tightly together at the bottom of a crater in southeastern DR Congo, swinging hammers and picks to prise chunks of speckled blue-gold ore from the earth.
The huge pit in Shabara, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) from Kolwezi, is home to cobalt - a strategic metal found in abundance in the impoverished central African nation.
But it's also emblematic of a headache.
The mining has been carrying on for years in flagrant violation of DRC laws and in defiance of the site's owner, a subsidiary of mining and commodities giant Glencore.