Outside of Soweto, South Africa, men risk their lives to illegally go inside closed-down mines in search of gold.
South Africa used to be the world's biggest gold producer, accounting for more than 80% of the global gold supply, according to The Washington Post. Today, international competition and high production costs have closed mines down - there are more than 6,000 abandoned mines across the country - and South Africa has become the world's center for illegal gold mining.
Desperate for work, former miners still go into the abandoned mines. Underground, they scrape the walls for gold, before carrying the earth up ropes to process and examine in nearby rivers. The fissure that Rooi Mpofu and Sherphard Sibanda climb into each day descends more than 20m into the earth. They use the air vent of the old mine as an entrance and work below ground for up to three days at a time.
Additional reporting by the European Pressphoto Agency.