Mozambique: Two illegal miners die in Namanhumbir – AIM report

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Mozambique: Two illegal miners die in Namanhumbir – AIM report

7:59 CAT | 12 Apr 2021

File photo: Bloomberg

The Mozambican company Montepuez Ruby Mining Limited (MRM) on Thursday announced the deaths of two more illegal miners when a mine shaft illicitly dug within the MRM concession area collapsed on top of them.

MRM holds the rights for mining rubies in the Namanhumbir area of Montepuez district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.

A press release from the company said that it had been informed of the deaths of the two miners on Monday morning. Both miners who died in the collapse were from Cabo Delgado, one from Nangade and the other from Mocimboa da Praia district.

MRM added that the police were immediately informed of the incident, and sent a team to remove the bodies.

The company believed that the illegal mine shaft “collapsed in rainy and dangerous conditions, at a time when the two miners were inside”.

Three days earlier, on 2 April, said MRM, it was informed that another illegal miner had lost hs life, again because a clandestine mine opened on the MRM concession had collapsed. This 24 year old man had come from Namialo, in the neighbouring province of Nampula.

Another man, also from Nampula, managed to escape from this shaft without injury, and he is currently “helping the police with their inquiries”, said MRM.

The MRM release also said that, on 31 March, a 48 year old “buyer of illegal rubies”, from Guinea-Conakry, was arrested within the MRM concession area, while he was supervising illegal mining operations.

MRM said that the increasing number of incidents, attacks and fatalities involving illegal miners on the MRM concession is a matter of major concern both for the company and for the local communities, whose villages have come under population pressure as illegal miners flood into Montepuez from other parts of Mozambique and from other countries.

“The unsafe practices on the part of the illegal miners, who are normally supervised or coerced by syndicates of smugglers of precious stones, financed by foreign traders operating in the region, are continuing to result in the unnecessary loss of human lives”, said the MRM release.

Since the start of this year, according to MRM, at least seven people, mostly young men, some from other countries, have been buried live because of the collapse of illegal mines, dug on the MRM concession without any safety measures.

“These incidents have been brought to the knowledge of the provincial and national authorities, in the hope that more pro-active measures will be taken against those who finance, facilitate and encourage the illegal trade in Mozambican rubies, damaging the country and its people, through the loss of lives, and the reduction in the necessary tax revenue from mineral resources”, said MRM.

Source: AIM