Top: Four of the Vietnamese mineworkers arrested by the police in Bannah, Sinoe County. Picture credit: Facebook/Butaw Radio TV
By Gabriel M. Dixon
GREENVILLE – Police in Sinoe County have arrested nearly a dozen Vietnamese nationals for allegedly violating a mining moratorium, local media reported.
Eight men were detained on Saturday on the order of Superintendent Peter Wleh Nyenswah.
“This initiative is intended to buttress the national government’s effort in the fight against illicit mining,” Nyenswah told Radio Butaw.
The men work for STT Heavy Mineral Resources Limited, a medium-scale company that mines zircon sand commonly called “black sand” in Greenville. The Vietnamese-owned company has five active black sand mining licenses in Sinoe County, the ministry’s records show.
Nguyen Thanh Truc, STT’s majority shareholder, did not immediately respond to queries.
Last month, the government of Liberia banned black sand mining across the country after a video of an illegally extracted stockpile of the minerals, posted by a citizen journalist, went viral on Facebook. Before that, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fined Quezp Mining Company in Brewerville and Royesville for operating without an environmental permit.
