The alleged fatal shootings of two illegal artisanal miners, identified only as ZZZ and ZZY, at Tanzania’s North Mara gold mine are at \u200bthe heart of a lawsuit against the London Bullion Market Association that \u200cbegan in London on Wednesday, court documents from both sides showed.<\/p>\n
The six-week trial is testing whether the LBMA, an industry body, can be held responsible for alleged human rights abuses linked to gold supply \u200bchains. The LBMA rejects the claim.<\/p>\n
The claimants said the LBMA did not control \u200bthe Tanzanian police but argued this does not preclude a duty \u2060of care with regard to the supply chain.<\/p>\n
The claimants said in the court documents \u200bthe two young men were self-employed artisanal miners and farmers who supplemented their income \u200bthrough unlicensed, illegal mining.<\/p>\n
According to the claimants, both were shot by police while fleeing the mine in separate incidents in 2019 and neither posed a threat.<\/p>\n
Representatives of Tanzania’s police did not respond to \u200brequests for comment.<\/p>\n
The claimants argue the deaths were part of a wider pattern of \u200bexcessive force against local residents entering the mine in search of gold-bearing material.<\/p>\n
The LBMA, meanwhile, points \u200cto \u2060North Mara’s long history of large-scale incursions by illegal miners, sometimes involving hundreds or even thousands of people. Court documents say trespassers have at times carried machetes.<\/p>\n
In ZZZ’s case, the claimants say he had left his panga, or machete, at home and was \u200bunarmed when police opened \u200bfire. In ZZY’s \u2060case, relatives and witnesses allege he was shot in the back while running away, court documents say.<\/p>\n
They also reject an illegality \u200bdefence, saying trespassers do not lose the protection of common law \u200band that \u2060any use of force must remain reasonable.<\/p>\n
The LBMA, however, highlights what it describes as evidential gaps. In court filings, it says the claimants have not sought incident records or \u2060reports from \u200bthe Tanzanian police, citing concerns over reprisals, and \u200bhave not produced medical evidence or post-mortem reports to support key allegations surrounding the deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The alleged fatal shootings of two illegal artisanal miners, identified only as ZZZ and ZZY, at Tanzania’s North Mara gold mine are at \u200bthe heart of a lawsuit against the London Bullion Market Association that \u200cbegan in London on Wednesday, court documents from both sides showed. The six-week trial is testing whether the LBMA, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,3028],"tags":[5523,131],"class_list":["post-22234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-mining","tag-london-bullion-market-association","tag-tanzania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22235,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22234\/revisions\/22235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}