At the Barrick gold mine in Tanzania, police are being accused of additional murders

Human Rights Watch has said that police protecting the North Mara Gold Mine in northern Tanzania were involved in at least six fatalities and numerous injuries sustained during the previous four months during conflicts surrounding the mine.

The latest in a string of similar claims involving security operations at the mine since 2014, the rights group urged Tanzanian authorities to immediately begin “independent and impartial investigations” into the occurrences.

The Canadian multinational Barrick Gold operates the mine, which is near the Kenyan border in the Mara region. According to the terms of their agreement, the Tanzanian government provides the security and holds joint ownership in the mine.

The local police have already been charged with abusing their power and even killing people in order to stop artisanal miners from carrying out their own small-scale activities within and around the property.

Residents living close to the mining and dumping locations have said that police have been assaulting, shooting, torturing, and holding them without charge. This information comes from rights groups and locals.

The locals have been accused by the police of unlawful entry, theft from the mine, and waste rock dumping in the area, but no arrests have been made thus far.

Oryem Nyeko, senior Tanzania researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated in a statement from Nairobi on Wednesday that “the growing number of unaccounted for killings connected to Tanzania’s North Mara Gold Mine reflect a worrying pattern of impunity for abuses that needs to be addressed.”

He went on, “The Tanzanian government should make sure that those accountable are held accountable rather than just brushing these deaths under the rug.”

Meanwhile, legal case Brick Gold informed HRW last week that it lacked “any de facto control” over the local police force and their operations.

When the lives of the company employees are in jeopardy, the police are called to the mine site to help maintain law and order. Just because police activity takes place close to the North Mara Gold Mine doesn’t mean that we are responsible for it or that we are aware of it, according to Barrick, who was quoted by HRW.

A group of twenty-one Tanzanians are suing Barrick in a Canadian court action because they believe the business was involved in the unlawful killings and beatings of locals by police linked to the North Mara mine.

The police working in and around the mine have allegedly been turned “into a private and heavily armed security force” by the corporation, according to the petitioners. HRW reports that a preliminary hearing for the case—which was filed in 2022—has been set for October of this year.