"Tanzanian Victims Commence Legal Action in UK against Barrick", 10 February 2020

 A group of seven Tanzanian human rights victims launched a legal claim at the British High Court against subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick Gold, one of the world’s largest gold mining companies, alleging serious abuses by security forces, including local police, employed at Barrick’s North Mara gold mine...

The group of claimants, who brought their case forward last Friday, reside in local communities around the mine...

The group of victims was assisted by RAID, a UK based corporate watchdog, and MiningWatch Canada, which have both documented human rights abuses at the North Mara mine through repeated research visits beginning in 2014. The claimants are represented by British law firm Hugh James...

The North Mara gold mine, located in a remote part of northern Tanzania, has been plagued by reports of serious human rights abuses against local community members by security forces since it was acquired by Barrick in 2006. This is the second British lawsuit against Barrick’s subsidiaries for deaths and injuries at the North Mara mine...

MiningWatch Canada and RAID documented 22 killings and 69 injuries at or near the mine From 2014 to 2016 alone, while a 2016 Tanzanian parliamentary inquiry received reports of 65 killed and 270 injured by police jointly responsible for mine security...

At last week’s Mining Indaba in South Africa, Barrick’s CEO Mark Bristow acknowledged that Acacia Mining, Barrick’s subsidiary which operated the North Mara mine till 2019, had been “irresponsibly-run” and “not properly managed.”...