– Police were called to the scene and opened fire, wounding some of the invaders. The situation remains tense, risking halting the mining operations
By Macário Severiano, in Pemba
Pemba (MOZ TIMES) – Hundreds of illegal miners have invaded the world’s largest ruby mine located in Cabo Delgado province, in northern Mozambique, threatening to halt its activities. The mine supplies around 50 per cent of the world’s rubies and is 75 per cent owned by the London based Gemfields through the locally registered company, Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM).
According to local sources, the mine invasion began on Saturday, and riot police units were deployed on Sunday to repel the invaders. A company source confirmed the invasion, describing it as the largest this year due to the number of invaders mobilised from surrounding villages.
On Sunday evening, MRM issued a statement confirming the invasion of the mine and claiming that it had been ‘encouraged by ruby smuggling syndicates’.
Invasions of the Montepuez Ruby Mining concession are frequent. At least once a month, up to 200 local miners illegally enter the mine to extract rubies using artisanal methods. This time, however, the number of invaders is estimated to be much higher than usual, posing a serious security risk to the mine.
MRM’s mining concession covers about 35,000 hectares in a rural area in the south of Cabo Delgado province, making it difficult to protect against illegal mining. Since 2017, the province of Cabo Delgado has seen terrorist attacks by a local jihadist group, called Ahlu Sunnah wa Jamaah (ASWJ), backed by Islamic State (IS).
Although there is no proven link between illegal mining and terrorist activity, it is suspected that the organised crime syndicates that finance illegal mining have links to terrorist groups.
The company alleged that there is “a disinformation campaign circulating on social media and promoted by ruby smuggling syndicates, which falsely suggests that MRM has opened its mine to any individual for ruby extraction for 24 hours. This is intended to promote disorder within the MRM concession in order to feed more rubies to the syndicates” – informed MRM in the document.
By Sunday evening the situation was still described by local sources as tense, with reports of people being shot dead by police. The MRM denied that there had been any deaths, but confirmed that two people had suffered gunshot wounds when the police responded to an escalation in aggression. (MS)
