Gold miners cover the coffin of a fellow miner who died working as a 'diver'. Divers use a hose to extract gold from a crater. A wake is held for the dead man in the street because he did not have a home in Madre de Dios. Most miners depend heavily on people who have secured the right to work a claim, and buy the equipment and fuel needed to mine, in order to secure a job. 'Some come looking for a better life. Others come looking to escape from justice,' said Feliciano Coila, a lawyer who works in the state's child protective services. He frequently has to rescue children from the mines, whose parents have sold them into servitude

Photograph: Esteban Felix/AP