Sudan's new gold rush: miners risk their lives in search of riches

With the economy in tatters, the government has opened the country to prospectors operating without regulations or oversight

It's a little before 7am on a bright, airless morning, and already Abdullah Idriss Isaac has been hard at work for hours.

Swishing his aluminium pan back and forth through a waist-deep pool of brackish water, he wearily scrutinises its contents for glimmers of gold. With the sun beginning to beat down, the young miner splashes handfuls of the liquid - laced with mercury and cyanide to separate gold from unwanted rock - on his face to stay alert.