"More Tanzanian human rights victims join UK legal action against Barrick"

Three more Tanzanian victims have joined a legal claim in British courts against Barrick Gold subsidiaries for serious human rights violations at the company’s North Mara gold mine in northern Tanzania...The initial claim was issued in the British High Court in February 2020 on behalf of seven human rights victims against Barrick Tz Limited, formerly known as Acacia Mining, of which Barrick was the majority shareholder, and its Tanzanian subsidiary.

The new claimants allege that security forces guarding Barrick’s gold mine shot and killed members of their families. The three claimants include a young man whose father was shot in the head at close range on the mine site, another young man whose brother was shot in the chest and a young woman whose husband was shot in the back as he was fleeing security forces at the mine. All three of the deceased were fathers to young children. The claimants say that it was the Tanzanian police, who are paid and equipped by the mine under an agreement requiring the police to coordinate security operations with mine personnel, who fired the lethal shots...This week Barrick released its half-year results and said that it faced a “clean-up of Herculean proportions” at its Tanzanian operations on environmental, human rights and tax issues following its buy-out of the minority shareholders in Acacia Mining in September 2019. Barrick’s CEO, Mark Bristow, has previously acknowledged that “Acacia was an irresponsibly-run business” which was “not properly managed”. At Barrick’s results presentation on 10 August, Bristow said that the company had “broken relations” with the local community and that it was “still a work in progress”, although he has failed to account for the fact Barrick was the majority shareholder of Acacia Mining throughout this time...