After a long and sweltering shift down the Trepca mine in Stanterg in northern Kosovo, Emin Hasani checks a clock so he knows when the sun is setting at the surface and whether the time has come to eat.
Their Iftar meal, which Muslims eat during the holy month after a day of fasting between sunrise and sunset, consists of dates, yogurt, pickles and cheese that they wash down with sugary black tea.
"Here I am closer to God and this is normal. We are always closer to God but the feeling is always that here we are closer to Him. When I am connected to Allah I feel safer, always."
Kosovo is a Muslim-majority country and hundreds of miners in the state-owned lead, zinc and silver mine are observing Ramadan.
Temperatures in the mines sometimes reach close to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
Miners also have to endure extreme humidity.
Fehmi Hajredini is the shift chief.
"I call everyone, the management or the government, to improve our working conditions. We need better air here, we need clothes, shoes. If these and other conditions are improved the miners will have a greater desire to work and the work would be done much better than it is today."
Trepca employed more than 22,000 workers in the 1970s and 80s and accounted for two thirds of Kosovo's gross domestic product (GDP).
Now it employs just 3,000 in the mines and other facilities.
