Ataco, a municipality sunk in the south of the department of Tolima, leaning on the foothills of the Central mountain range, is experiencing two fevers: yellow fever and the gold rush, which has the health authorities and those responsible for guaranteeing security and public order under strain. The two problems even complement each other: the attraction exerted by the precious metal brings people from outside the region, who can then end up infected.
Just a month ago, the epidemiologist of the Tolima Health Secretariat, Fair Alarcon, reported that so far in 2026 four cases of this disease had already been confirmed in people engaged in illegal mining in the rural area of Ataco, the municipality with the most cases of yellow fever in that department, which already had 27 infections with 10 deaths.
Until 2024, when the first outbreak of yellow fever occurred in the neighboring municipality of Ortega, Tolima had gone 22 years without reports of cases. Epidemiologist Alarcon also highlighted that the vector or mosquito that transmits yellow fever (Aedes or Haemagogus) only “bites” at night, so it should be easier to control in work areas. “But it turns out that in illegal mining many people even work at night, up to 24 hours, and that makes it more difficult to control the disease,” he explained.
With a vaccine for yellow fever; without a vaccine for the gold rush
Last February, the governor of Tolima, Adriana Magali Matiz, reported that at the beginning of the current year new cases appeared: “This year has been complex because, between the month of December of the previous year and the month of January of this year, we have had 29 cases of yellow fever. But the most worrying thing has been the mortality: of the 29 cases that have occurred, 14 people have died. That worries us greatly in our department. Because if we do not have the vaccine, then we are going to have more people dying.”
At that time, the governor again called on the people of Tolima to get vaccinated against yellow fever. “The only thing that saves you from yellow fever is the vaccine,” she stressed. “You, with your grandparents, with your parents, can get vaccinated from nine months of age up to 70, 80 years old that a person may be. So, today we are here at the educational institution because we need each one of you to get vaccinated.”
But Governor Matiz has not found a vaccine against the gold rush. “We are extremely concerned about what is happening in the south of the department of Tolima,” she said in recent hours on Caracol Radio. “These are mafias that have entered with machinery and technology into Ataco, a municipality that has traditionally had ancestral mining, but where illegal gold extraction is now taking place, putting the entire environmental issue at risk.”
She reported that in Ataco 232 hectares have been devastated, also putting at risk the road infrastructure of the department, which is being destroyed. “Today we have bridges and roads that have been designed to support 25 tons, and with all the machinery that is moving toward the south of the department that infrastructure is supporting weights of more than 40 tons,” she lamented.
Irreversible environmental damage
The Regional Autonomous Corporation of Tolima (Cortolima) has warned that the impacts of illegal mining on ecosystems and natural resources, such as the Saldaña River, one of the main tributaries of southern Tolima, are irreversible: total removal of vegetation cover, excavations that wipe out 100% of the fauna and flora of the area, contamination of water sources such as the Ata River and the Pole and Guanabanito streams, severe soil erosion, and alterations in the behavior patterns of species due to acoustic and light pollution.
These impacts compromise the ecological stability and water sustainability of the territory. The departmental leader reported that in recent hours 267 uniformed personnel entered the municipality of Ataco to carry out a “very important operation” against these mafias that carry out illegal gold extraction in Ataco.
“It is such a serious and large problem that it overwhelms the institutional capacity of both the municipality and the department,” Matiz said on the radio. “That is why the Ministry of Defense was called upon, along with the Ministries of Transport and Mines, together with Cortolima, in order to carry out joint actions to make the problem visible and issue administrative measures that would allow control of the movement of heavy machinery toward the south of Tolima.”
For the governor, illegal mining has become a war economy that destroys the territory and finances violence in the gold market. “It is the new drug trafficking: it finances violence, destroys water, and buys silence. It is a problem that must draw attention at the national level,” she said, and called for regulation of gold commercialization. “Today it is illegal to extract gold, but it is not illegal to commercialize it. Therefore, we must pursue and combat the entire route of that illegal gold. Here we must close the markets that launder criminal gold.