The damp cold here penetrates to the bone; freezing rain and wet snow are commonplace, as are respiratory diseases including pneumonia. The cold is so raw and bleak that people wear anoraks and woolly hats indoors. For the unaccustomed, the extreme altitude wraps an iron like fist around the head, causing constant headaches, breathlessness and palpitations; foreigners routinely visit the hospital for oxygen.

The city is a collection of grey houses perched around a huge, muddy abyss of terraces that make up an ever-expanding open pit mine. The pit threatens to swallow up everything in its path and has already made victim of heritage buildings and other symbols of the city’s history.

The Peruvian Volcan mining company carries on with its plan undisturbed, as not many government officials are about to make a 7-hour trip up into such an inhospitable region. As it expands, people abandon their houses and build new ones, which spring up further and further away on the surrounding mountains.

Nearly 14% of the municipality’s territory has already been given away to mining companies in the form of mining concessions. “The government doesn’t care about the people of Cerro de Pasco,” says Gladys Huaman, director of Labor, a humanitarian NGO, Development and Peace’s partner here. “We are a forgotten city.”

Elvira, a local journalist, recalls the family home that she once lived in and now no longer exists, as it was demolished to make way for the voracious mine. She remembers company officials putting pressure on her father to sell them the house. Her father’s reluctance was encouraged by the mayor, who told him to stay put and promised that the city would provide better facilities, including running water. When the mayor’s murdered body was found close to the mine a few weeks later, Elvira’s father understood that it was time to relocate.

Today, violence is not necessary to get the population to move out of the way of the mine’s expansion. Celia, a Labor worker, used to live right close to the open pit mine, but one day her kitchen collapsed. An architect told her the collapse was due to excessive damp caused by the nearby mine expansion, so she moved further out.

Pollution levels in Cerro de Pasco have also been shown to reach high levels. Tests run by the archdiocese of Huancayo showed that earth samples taken at an agricultural site in Cerro de Pasco had lead levels of 4,556 parts per million(ppm), compared to the acceptable Canadian norm, which is 70 ppm. Arsenic levels were at 314.7 ppm, whereas the acceptable level is 12 ppm, while cadmium was at 76.8, when the acceptable level is 1.4 ppm. Tests run by Labor in cooperation with the archdiocese of Huancayo showed that 91% of children have heavy metals in their blood.

"Cerro de Pasco in Peru, where metals are annihilating a generation" (Cerro de Pasco in Perù, dove i metalli stanno annientando una generazione), writes Silvia Camisasca on January 3, 2022 in Vatican News. “The prestigious journal Nature reports a study which says that the children of Cerro de Pasco fall ill and suffer a progressive poisoning which delays their development.” This is the analysis conducted by scientists from the Italian NGO Source International, directed by the biologist Flaviano Bianchini who has been involved in following the case of Cerro de Pasco since 10 years ago. "The cause, the report says, is to be found in the heavy metals present in their bodies, in particular in the lead slag produced by the extraction activity of the large open pit mine located in the center of the city."

The community of Cerro needs justice, because a society that does not take care of its children "is without a future", recalls Bianchini. From the preliminary analyzes it emerged that "the average IQ of the children of Cerro de Pasco is 18 points lower than that of children from neighboring regions." "Lead blocks the development of IQ, which occurs in the first 5 years of life" and the damage is permanent and irreversible. Even in the hair of these children, it is found a concentration of lead 42 times higher than normal.

"They are not only depriving the children of Cerro of their health, but also of the possibility of a future, destining them to marginalization and social exclusion."

Cerro de Pasco is the emblem of modern society, concludes Silvia Camisasca: "100% of the minerals extracted from the Cerro quarries - controlled by a multinational company based in Switzerland - are exported." In Peru, only waste and pollution remain, making children sick.

Despite these high pollution levels, the government has found a way of selling drinking water from Cerro de Pasco to Lima – a Brazilian company has been awarded the concession to pipe water down to the city. The fact that the population of Cerro de Pasco does not have an adequate water supply seems to be a detail that has escaped them.

Labor is pushing the government for a plan to relocate the whole city of 80,000 houses elsewhere. Although the area has been declared an environmental emergency by the government, little has been done to find a solution, and nothing has been done to slow the voracious expansion of the mine. Thankfully, Labor is present to defend the population. It got the government to issue a ruling to draw up an inventory of the number of citizens displaced by the mine and of those suffering from pollution related health problems. The rulings, Labor say, will force the government to eventually act. However, things are moving slowly, and the people will have to be persistent.

See Cerro de Pasco: A community being swallowed by a mine