33 Persons Arrested For Attacking Golden Star Wassa Mine

33 persons have been arrested for vandalizing properties belonging to the Golden Star Wassa Mine at Benso in the Western Region last week. Illegal miners are reported to have amongst other properties set 12 vehicles ablaze including excavators, ambulances and pick-ups forcing the staff of the company to run for their lives. The Head of Group Corporate Affairs of the company, Mr. Gerard Hillary Boakye earlier narrated how they were attacked.

We usually do our patrols to protect our concession which is required of us by law to be responsible for our boundaries and also prevent incursions, to make sure that community people, hunters, and farms are safe. On one such occasion which was Thursday, March 16, we encountered some illegal miners encroaching, we then engaged them as part of our modus operandi and told them to move away.

They were interested in that area, so they came back and when they came back, we tried to ward them off with the help of the police. They dispersed again and apparently unconfirmed report reaching us is that they may have been injured in the cause of being dispersed. That probably infuriated them, and they came back to torch our vehicles and ran our security post down, destroyed our offices, basically burnt things down, he explained.