Mining staff killed in DRC 'arson attack'

Mining staff killed in DRC 'arson attack'

Sapa-AFP

25th April 2006

Lubumbashi, DRCongo - Two employees of a Canadian mining company died when illegal miners set fire to the firm's premises in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a regional official said on Tuesday.

"Illegal diggers who had been chased off the site of the firm (Anvil Mining) set fire to the premises, where there were a cook and a security guard," Diemu Tchikez, deputy governor of Katanga, told AFP from Kolwezi, where the incident took place, about 250km north-west of the provincial capital Lumumbashi.

"They were unable to get out and were burned alive," he said.

"The miners had been chased from the Anvil concession the day before by company guards and said that one of their number had been thrown in a well," Tchikez said.

He said the security company hired by Anvil had denied throwing the illegal digger down the well.

But a witness told AFP that security staff had indeed thrown a miner named Kayembe Mokoji into a pit full of water in the mine and he had drowned.

News of the death sparked a march on the town hall of Kolwezi where, according to witnesses the protestors were turned away. The demonstrators then marched on the mining company's offices.

Anvil has been mining copper in Katanga for some years. It recently began operations in Kolwezi, obtaining a concession from which it is trying to expel independent miners.