MALI has suspended the granting of new artisanal mining permits to foreigners following accidents in recent weeks that claimed 56 lives, many of them women and children.
Interim President Assimi Goita had “instructed the government to strengthen measures to avoid human and environmental tragedies,” said Minister of Security and Civil Protection, General Daoud Aly Mohamedinne in a Bloomberg News article on Wednesday.
The measures include suspending local authorities from granting artisanal mining permits to foreign nationals, the seizure of any equipment used to extract gold at small-scale mines and firing local authorities in communities where deadly mine incidents have taken place, the newswire said.
There have been two accidents since the beginning of the year, said Reuters. On February 15, a collapse of a gold mine killed 43 people, mostly women, in the gold-rich Kayes region. On January 29, 13 artisanal miners, including women and three children, were killed in southwest Mali after a tunnel in which they were digging for gold flooded.
In response to the deaths, Mali’s Council of Ministers decided at its weekly meeting on Wednesday to suspend the granting of artisanal mining permits “to persons of foreign nationality”, said Reuters citing a government statement.
It also approved the dismissal of administrative and security officials connected to the two recent accidents, the statement said.
Mali is one of Africa’s top gold producers and home to industrial mines operated by international companies including Barrick Gold, B2Gold Corp, and Resolute Mining.
