Sierra Leone Police Shoot Miners (2012)

Tue Dec 18, 2012

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Image: Three workers sifting through water in Sierra Leone’s Kono District

On this day in 2012, police shot and killed two miners in the Kono District of east Sierra Leone. Workers at the mine, acquired by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s Octea Diamond Group in 2003, had walked out against non-payment of bonuses, bad working conditions, and racist treatment.

Before the strike, Octea had promised a Christmas bonus the equivalent of three months wages, but withdrew the bonus at the minute, leading to the strike action. Following the two worker’s deaths, miners stormed the hospital and carried their dead bodies through the streets, vowing revenge.

The labor strife took place in the context of a national period of unrest. On April 16th, a few months earlier, workers at African Minerals Limited (AML), a mining firm headquartered in London, went on strike in northern Sierra Leone after their demands to government officials went unanswered.

Marching protesters, the most heavily armed carrying rocks, were fired on by police in the town center, killing a 24-year-old woman and wounding eight others. Three officers were injured.

Police arrested at least 29 people who were held for a day before being released without charge; many alleged they were beaten during their arrest.