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China’s Shaanxi Mining in Deadly Gold Mine Dispute in Ghana – SMH

Dozens of local men are alleged to have died in mines run by a Chinese mining company, which is accused of digging under a neighbouring concession to steal a huge amount of gold


Mining companies from China and Australia are involved in a dispute over gold from adjacent mines in northern Ghana, where dozens of local men are alleged to have died.
The site of the Cassius mining concession in northern Ghana. Cassius has filed a case with an international arbitration court in London in the dispute said to be worth US$272 million. Meanwhile, families of the unlicensed miners say they have received no compensation and that local officials don't care about their relatives' deaths. Photo: Cassius Mining website.

 

A Chinese mining company has been accused of poisoning dozens of poor Africans who climb down shafts into underground mines in Gbane, 700km north of Accra in Ghana in west Africa, to steal gold from operations run by foreign companies, according to a year-long investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald and a local journalist, which says Shaanxi Mining Company Ghana Ltd also has also a bitter dispute with an Australian mining company that claims the state-linked Chinese firm seeking gold on an adjacent block dug long tunnels under their concession area to ‘steal’ gold valued at tens of millions of dollars.

This map shows the location of the gold mines in northern Ghana. Image: Cassius Mining.

The “deadly A$395 million dispute” between Australia’s Cassius Mining Ltd and Shaanxi began five years ago in Talensi district when the bosses of Cassius noticed ventilation shafts close to their concession and began to suspect Shaanxi miners had dug shafts hundreds of metres below their concession, while allegedly processing thousands of tonnes of ore every week. In January 2019 there were explosions – blasts of chlorine that a Sydney mine manager, victims’ families and a community leader allege were set deliberately to eliminate young men trespassing on the Chinese mine to scrape a living from accumulated gold dust, the report said, adding that 16 men died after inhaling toxic chlorine gas and that dozens more lost their lives in company mines in similar circumstances since 2013 – allegations that a Shaanxi spokesman denied.

Read the full report: Sydney Morning Herald.

 

 

ALSO SEE:

China’s BYD Seeks to Buy African Lithium Mines – The Paper

Chinese Firms Vie for Control of Huge DRC Lithium Project – SCMP

China’s Huayou Cobalt Buys Zimbabwe Lithium Project

 

 

Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years.

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