“For the first two years after the accident I was fine,” says Carlos Barrios (below), who was 27 at the time of the mine collapse. “I wasn’t in any pain, I was playing football, I had a job and then: boom!” He became addicted to the tablets he was prescribed by his psychiatrist and can no longer work. “I have nightmares, a fear of the dark. I have a young daughter, and I can’t sleep in the same bed as her and my wife because I have dreams and start thrashing about and lashing out at my own daughter”.

Omar Reygadas (below), now 59, says that they’re all finding it hard to get work. He believes this is because they now have press and governmental contacts. Potential employers know that if the miners were to see the company involved in anything dodgy they could be very effective whistle blowers. Big companies don’t want the risk.

So why didn’t the miners get what was supposed to be coming to them?…

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