The National Concerned Small Scale Miners Association of Ghana has unequivocally condemned the killing of two unarmed artisanal miners by Forestry Commission operatives at Mfante in the Ahafo Ano North District of the Ashanti Region.

The two were protecting a mining site at Mfante when the security taskforce besieged them in a swoop.

Following a short confrontation, eye witnesses claim the Forestry Commission operatives opened fire on the miners, killing them in the process.

Describing the incident as a barbaric act, the miners association said the event “cannot be swept under the carpet as government continues on a shameful face-saving enterprise after failing to deal with the illegal mining menace for seven years.”

According to the miners association, the shooting of the men at a community site was engineered to further a “sinister political agenda.”

The association has therefore called on the government to immediately institute measures to investigate the matter to bring the trigger-happy forestry employees and their paymasters to book.

“We give the government two days to take immediate steps to resolve this matter and bring the murderers to justice or prepare to kill even more innocent miners as we are prepared to mobilize the youth in the area to demonstrate and also cause them to vote massively against the NPP in the 2024 elections,” they warned.