Guinea has charged 60 people with arson, theft and murder after a deadly riot at the privately-owned Weily Mining firm in the northeastern gold-producing Siguiri region, prosecutors said on Friday.<\/p>\n
Unrest broke out on October 4 after locals demanded the release of 17 people detained over an earlier vandalism incident at the same site, Siguiri\u2019s public prosecutor Ibrahima I. Camara said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Protesters stormed the mine, torching 10 buses, two pickup trucks – including one belonging to the gendarmerie – and two buildings. Two people were killed and several others injured, it added.<\/p>\n
The charges include voluntary arson, destruction of property, and complicity in murder.<\/p>\n
Weily Mining, which said it exported its first gold from the Niagassola mine in September 2024 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The violence highlights growing tensions in Siguiri, home to AngloGold Ashanti’s multiple open pit gold mines and plagued by illegal artisanal mining.<\/p>\n
Guinea, which holds the world\u2019s largest bauxite reserves and vast iron ore deposits at Simandou, has seen rising unrest at mining sites amid a regulatory crackdown.<\/p>\n
The military junta, in power since 2021, has sought to boost economic growth by renegotiating mining contracts, accelerating project development, and increasing state earnings from Guinea\u2019s vast natural resource wealth.<\/p>\n
Authorities said investigations into the riot will be conducted jointly by the police and gendarmerie.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13258,"template":"default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-13257","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Guinea has charged 60 people with arson.||Guinea has charged 60 people with arson.","published_date":"2025-10-11 11:09:10||2025-10-11 11:09:10","news_description":"Guinea has charged 60 people with arson.||Guinea has charged 60 people with arson.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18460,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/13257\/revisions\/18460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}