The decision to suspend MIDROC Gold’s mining license came in the wake of at least two deaths related to a wave of protests in the restive Oromia region.
By Meleskachew Ameha (VOA News)
ADDIS ABABA–Pressured by more than a week of sometimes deadly demonstrations, Ethiopia’s mining ministry agreed late Wednesday to suspend the gold-mining operations of a company accused of releasing dangerous chemicals in the country’s south.
“The suspension is in response to the demands of the people,” Bacha Faji, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas, announced Wednesday evening on state-run media.
The move at least temporarily halts operations by Mohammed International Development Research and Organization Companies, or MIDROC, at a site near the town of Shakiso and the Lega Dembi River.
The ministry spokesman promised an independent investigation into MIDROC Gold and said operations would resume if and when “all stakeholders agree on the result of that investigation.”
The company, owned by African-born Saudi billionaire Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, has operated the mine since the late 1990s.
MIDROC Gold did not respond to a VOA query about the suspension. No update was available on its website.
The decision came in the wake of at least two deaths related to a wave of protests in the restive Oromia region. The protests began April 30, following news that the mining ministry had renewed MIDROC’s mining permit for another 10 years.
The deaths occurred in or near the town of Adola, in the Oromia region’s East Guji zone.
On Tuesday, at least one person was fatally injured when demonstrators marched to the local police station to demand the release of detained compatriots, witnesses told VOA.
Chala Ware, Adola’s deputy mayor, told VOA that demonstrators crowded into the compound, and amid jostling, some fell into a drainage ditch.
“I’m not sure if the injuries were from gunshot or a fall,” he said, acknowledging that one person died and two others were hospitalized.
But a demonstrator who asked VOA to withhold his name out of fear of arrest said police had used tear gas on protesters, some of whom blindly stumbled into the ditch.
Read the complete story at VOA News
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