|
By Katrina Manson
Freetown - Sierra Leone ordered the country's biggest diamond mine to suspend operations on Friday pending an investigation into riots in which two people died and several were hospitalised in the eastern mining town of Koidu.
Police used tear gas and live bullets to disperse more than 400 protesters who looted equipment and destroyed a generator at mining company Koidu Holdings' concession on Thursday.
President Ernest Bai Koroma ordered a temporary halt to Koidu's operations in an effort to calm tensions in the poor West African state, in which fighting for control of diamond mines fuelled a brutal 1991-2002 civil war.
"Two people are dead and eight injured," police Chief Superintendant Joseph Kabia in Koidu told Reuters by telephone.
Following the election of Koroma's All People's Congress (APC) government in September, about 1 000 illicit miners invaded Koidu Holdings' concession in the hope of unearthing diamonds.
Police removed the miners on December 12 after Koidu agreed they could keep any diamonds from the gravel they had collected.
The latest violence erupted after demonstrators assembled at the mine's entrance when the company carried out blasting to loosen the hard diamond-rich rock. Police said they were unable to control the situation.
"The commander told us they had shotguns, so we had to use armed police," said Kadia. "They heard continuous gun shots so there was no alternative. They fired into the air."
It was unclear how the two dead were killed. A delegation of officials, including the minister of defence, flew to Koidu on Friday for discussions with police, locals and the company.
Residents are demanding more compensation for Koidu's mining activities. Aminata Kelly-Lamin, of advocacy group Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD), said demonstrators staged a peaceful protest and police overreacted.
NMJD says more than 5 000 people should be re-housed, but Koidu says 155 households within the 250-metre (yard)blast envelope will be resettled.
Minister of Mineral Resources Alhaji Abubakarr Jalloh, who has appealed for illicit miners to leave the area, noted the "company is relatively slow in building the resettlement".
A private company owned by Israeli diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz, Koidu Holdings mines the deepest vertical kimberlite pipe in the world. It has been in talks with locals who live near the blast site in the concession for several years.
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
