Ten people have been killed in violent clashes with security forces in Guinea’s gold-producing northeast, days after the government banned artisanal mining in the region.
The country’s Ministry of Territorial Administration said the clashes took place on Wednesday in Siguiri prefecture, when defence and security forces were checking that the ban was being observed. The situation escalated after protesters put up barricades on public roads, and shots were exchanged, the ministry said in a statement issued late on Thursday.
Ten people, including five foreign nationals, died in the clashes and 13 were injured, according to the ministry’s provisional figures. It did not say what nationalities the foreign victims were.
Guinea banned artisanal gold mining in Siguiri on 2 November. The authorities said miners’ failure to comply with regulations had caused environmental damage, including pollution of farmland, rivers and vegetation.
The ban has already driven a large exodus from the region. Neighbouring Mali said last week that around 100,000 people had arrived in the capital, Bamako, and nearly 60,000 more in the border town of Kouremale after being forced to leave Guinea when the ban was announced.
Burkina Faso said on Friday that it had repatriated 45,406 of its citizens who were forced to leave Guinea as a result of the ban.
Artisanal mining, driven by growing demand for metals and rising prices, is a common activity across much of West Africa, and the Siguiri ban has put the livelihoods of tens of thousands of small-scale miners at risk.
The casualty figures in this report come from the Guinean government’s own statement and have not been independently verified.
Sources: Reuters — “10 killed in clashes in Guinea after artisanal mining ban”, https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/10-killed-clashes-guinea-after-artisanal-mining-ban-2026-11-13/
