Over 60 miners arrested at ‘lawless’ gold mine site in Liberia

Liberian officials previously declared that five bodies were recovered on February 13 and 40 were still trapped in a collapsed gold mine. Currently, BBC reports that over 60 miners (some of them armed) have been arrested at the illegal gold mine in north-eastern Liberia, where 40 people remained trapped in the collapsed mine.

They 'resisted' a team sent to restore order at the site, Archievego Doe of the disaster management agency opined. Whereas another official described the situation as 'lawless', BBC further reported.

Rescuers have so far retrieved seven bodies after the walls of the pit caved in on February 10. Liberian authorities deployed a team comprising the army, police, immigration and drug enforcement agency officials to the gold field in Nimba County, a major centre for illicit mining. The immigration services were involved in the operation because some of the illegal miners are foreigners, Doe said.

Thousands of people are believed to work in the mine, near the town of Tapeta. Aubrey Wehye, the district superintendent of the Tapeta region, who called the situation 'lawless', added that some of the illegal miners were in possession of "Guinean-made shotguns that they fire all night".

The illegal miners fear that the government wants to shut down their operations, says the BBC's Jonathan Paye-Layleh, who is in the capital, Monrovia. Poverty and a weak economy mean there is no shortage of Liberians willing to risk death in illegal gold mines, our reporter says.