"The final days of a Peruvian village displaced by a giant copper mine", Dialogue Earth, 17 October 2025

Morococha was [...] eventually displaced by one of the largest ever Chinese state-backed investments in Peru.

[...] economic life in the old town dwindled and the opportunities on offer centred around the new settlement. “If you didn’t accept, then there was no work. Fear forced them to leave,” [...].

[...] Dialogue Earth visited in early September, when vehicle access to Morococha by outsiders was being blocked and monitored by Chinalco. [...].

In 2020, two women were arrested for protesting the roadblocks. Chinalco then reported the families to the authorities for “loitering” in their own village [...].

[...] “They were evicted without trial or process, and to this day they do not know where their belongings are.” Even the houses were demolished, despite a court order to preserve them. “The only thing the families have asked is that we not abandon them,” [...].

[...] what has happened in Morococha should be described as a “forced displacement”. [...] Chinalco negotiated with each family, never with the whole village [...] “a divide and rule strategy that worked”.

[...] the government declaring Morococha a hazard was a legal mechanism to favour Chinalco: “The dispossession was legalised and the company took advantage of a corrupt system… The message is clear: if it happened in Morococha, it can happen in any project. It is a dangerous precedent.”

Dialogue Earth requested multiple interviews with Chinalco about the resettlement of Morococha. At the time of publication, it had not responded. [...].

“We didn’t negotiate; the company set its price.” [...] “Chinalco promised that the operations camp would be in the new city to generate commerce. It didn’t deliver: there isn’t even 40% of the movement that there was in the old town.”

“They only offer precarious jobs,” [...] “Not even my children, who are professionals, have been given work.”