N’Djamena: More than 100 gold miners have been killed and 40 others have been injured in violence that erupted last week at the Kouri Bougoudi gold site in the north of Chad, an official said.
Images circulating on Chadian social media in recent days showed piled up or charred bodies in the gold-bearing area, in the Tibesti region that borders Libya, Xinhua news agency reported.
“It is rather an argument between two individuals and afterwards, it led to row fights,” Daoud Yaya Brahim, a Minister delegate to the Presidency of the Council, was quoted by local media as saying on Monday.
An army unit stationed in Kouri Bougoudi, 35 kilometres from the gold site where the conflict broke out, has been dispatched to intervene between the belligerents, he added.
“The operation of the site is suspended, and all foreigners are being transported to Libya and Chadians to Wour, with the means of the Army,” the official said.
Since 2017, gold mining in Tibesti, a mountainous area, has attracted tens of thousands of Chadians, and gold miners from Libya, Niger and other neighbouring countries, news reports said.