Brief

Reported Violence against Indigenous Kuria by Mine Police at Barrick Gold’s North Mara Gold Mine during 2023-2024

This year, MiningWatch gathered information on alleged violence against Kuria villagers in 2023 and 2024 carried out by police assigned to the mine. We received information on 28 cases and conducted interviews with alleged victims and family members of those who have been killed. The 28 cases include villagers who have been shot and killed, shot and survived, beaten to death, arrested and tortured, and maimed in a life-altering way through being hit by a teargas canister. The cases include some villagers who were allegedly wounded or killed while looking for residual gold in the mine’s waste rock dumps, but also many who were reportedly wounded or killed as bystanders while on roads that pass closely by the mine’s walls or in hamlets close to the mine that experience regular raids by mine police. The cases also include two teenagers – school children – who were victims of raids carried out by mine police as they chased trespassers outside of the mine’s walls. Both teenagers were seriously wounded but survived.