Latest: Ten people were killed on Wednesday in clashes between security forces and protesters in the northeastern Siguiri gold region as defence and security forces enforced the November 2 ban on unregulated artisanal mining, Guinea’s Ministry of Territorial Administration said. Protesters had erected barricades on public roads before the confrontation escalated into an exchange of gunfire; five foreign nationals were among the dead and 13 people were injured, on provisional government figures. The enforcement campaign has driven tens of thousands of miners and their families into Mali, where authorities put arrivals at about 100,000 in Bamako and nearly 60,000 in the border town of Kouremale and recorded 11 further deaths linked to the displacement; Burkina Faso said on Friday it had repatriated 45,406 of its citizens forced to leave Guinea.
Guinea has begun prosecuting 1,263 people arrested in the northeastern Siguiri gold region, with proceedings opening in Conakry on November 11. The defendants are accused of illegal exploitation of mineral resources, environmental degradation, destruction of property and water pollution, under the Penal Code, Mining Code and Environmental Code.
The arrests followed a government ban on unregulated artisanal gold mining in Siguiri that took effect on November 2, after inspections identified damage to farmland and vegetation, pollution and silting of waterways, and alleged use of mercury, cyanide, explosives and heavy machinery. A further 149 arrests in Kerouane and Siguiri brought the cumulative total detained in the operation to 1,412 as of November 9.
In one case before the Court for the Repression of Economic and Financial Offences, 202 defendants were arraigned alongside 22 territorial administrators accused of promoting or facilitating illegal mining. The defendants include nationals of Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Niger, Ivory Coast and Ghana as well as Guinea, reflecting the cross border labour force of the informal gold sector. The defendants are accused, not convicted. Separate reporting, not independently verified, put the number of people who fled toward Mali at about 160,000.