digging up

"We've been doing up the house anyway, so I hired a digger and, with the help of a mate, we started digging up the driveway to see what was there," he said.

He adds this possibility had not been explored because digging up the pipeline was thought to be "far too expensive".

Some were deep underground digging up ore with shovels, others then hoisted sacks of the extracted rock containing coltan, which is used to make many electronic devices, on to their shoulders.

The forces reportedly withdrew on Friday after digging up several areas.

The use of shovels in the heat, digging up stone-hard ground.