The bodies of 13 gold miners were found in an underground shaft at a location managed by the largest gold mining company in Peru, said President Dina Boluarte on Monday in a region that has seen a growing conflict in recent years about access to Oersts.
Because the price of gold has risen to register highlights, small -scale mining has been expanded in Peru, while the mining concessions of the Peruvian company, La Poderosa, in the province of Pataz in the northern part of the country, have become a hotbed of illegal gold mining and the site of fatal congestions.
According to Mrs. Boluarte, the bodies were found on Sunday. The men had worked for a traditional or informal mining operation that has a contract with La Poderosa, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
A video that circulated on social media seemed to show the miners, blindfolded and naked in a mine shaft, which was shot one by one. One person is heard to beg, “please.” A representative of the National Police told the New York Times that officials had not verified the authenticity of the video.
It was not immediately clear why the 13 men were killed. La Poderosa said in his statement that armed criminals had attacked the mine surgery and the employees had kidnapped on 26 April.
Mrs. Boluarte said that two people who were suspected of being connected to the murders in Pataz had been arrested with weapons, magazines and ammunition.
The owner of the mining operation that the employees hired, Segundo Nicolás Cueva Rojas, did not immediately respond to requests for comments via telephone and e -mail.
Before the bodies were found, some family members of the employees at the local news media had complained that the authorities did not do enough to find their loved ones.
‘We demand justice, “said Abraham Domínguez, the father of a victim, Deyter Domínguez, 29, told the local radio program” “Exitosa. “” This cannot remain unpunished. This is not an animal that has been killed. These are people. “
He told the New York Times that his son “wanted to bloom, be someone in life.” He added: “He had a strong desire and wants to go ahead. Now he is gone.”
He also said it was not the police who had found the bodies, but self-defense patrols known as “Ronderos” who operate in Highland areas.
Peru is the second largest producer of gold in Latin America after Mexico, and the 10th largest global producer alongside Indonesia, according to 2024 Data of the Geological Survey of the United States. Peru has long had trouble limiting illegal gold mining, especially in external Amazon regions where wildcat mines have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of rainforest and dumped mercury in rivers.
During Pandemic Lockdowns, criminals took control of empty mining shafts managed by authorized artisan miners in La Poderosa, which registers deadly fights about access to the tunnels and the gold that is produced inside.
Part of the problem, experts say is that Peru allows traditional miners who register with the government to be exempt from working, environmental and tax laws and offers legal coverage for illegal miners who are active in forbidden areas or without the permission of concessionaires.
In her statement, La Poderosa blamed the Congress of Peru in Party for the spiral violence and said it had expanded the deadline with which informal miners had to fully legalize their activities, and it blamed the government for not removing unauthorized miners from the list.
“Pataz has become a lawless territory where violence drives unbridled, takes lives, sows terror and subjects,” said the statement. “It will be impossible to defeat crime if, despite our repeated requests, the police will not continue to enter and experience the illegal mine inputs where criminal gangs resort and operate.”
In December 2023Nine people were killed in a mine ambush by criminals, and in October last yearThe authorities found 16 bodies in a mass grave in one minas.
On Saturday, while the authorities were looking for the missing men, the police saved 50 employees from another Peruvian mining company, Caravelí, who was held hostage in the company’s gold processing factory in another part of the province of Pataz, according to Unpleasant Peru’s News agency of the state. Eight people were injured in a shooting between the police and armed men.
In response to the last massacre, Mrs. Boluarte suspended for 30 days in the Pataz area and encouraged the army to restore order. On Monday she announced a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am in the Pataz district and said that the authorities would install a military base there.
The mayor of the province of Pataz, Aldo Carlos Mariño, said that a state of emergency in the province had been ‘useless’ in the past year and urged the government to improve intelligence operations to stop the criminals behind the violence.
“We give everything to the country; we give it all our gold,” said Mr. Mariño on a local TV station Sunday. “The province of Pataz is covered with blood.”
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