Tuesday 15 March 2016

Update: Bodies of missing Venezuela miners found

Relatives with pictures of missing miners

The bodies of four missing miners have been found in a mass grave in Venezuela, and up to 24 co-workers may be buried with them, officials said Monday. 28 miners reportedly failed to return home from their shifts on March 4, and reports soon emerged that they had been gunned down by attackers trying to take over their small-scale gold mine (You can read the story here). Their families have been staging protests demanding authorities find out what happened to them.
"We found the site where the remains are buried. At this moment there's a team of experts at the scene exhuming the remains," Attorney General Luisa Ortega told TV network Globovision.
"They have removed four bodies so far. We don't know if all (the missing miners) are there."
She said the evidence so far indicated there were 21 missing miners, not 28, but cautioned that the investigation was ongoing. President Nicolas Maduro last week ordered the army into the remote area in southeastern Venezuela, calling the case "a possible massacre in a war between gangs."
Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez said authorities suspect the attack was ordered by an Ecuadoran man with ties to Colombian paramilitaries named Jamilton Andres Ulloa Suarez, alias "The Mole." Ortega, the attorney general, said investigators were still trying to establish a motive.
The area is known for armed criminal groups, and local officials have speculated one of them may have tried to take over the unlicensed mine by force.

2 comments:

  1. So the families were right...they were murdered!

    ReplyDelete
  2. good thing the families made much noise in the media for the bodies to be found

    ReplyDelete