Dig for gold in Ghana at your own risk, Chinese miners warned after arrests
- Beijing issues statement amid crackdown on illegal operations in West African country
- Several Chinese nationals have been detained in recent days, foreign ministry says
Chinese citizens who work at gold mines in Ghana will not be protected by their home country if they get snared in a crackdown on illegal mining, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned after some Chinese nationals were detained for working in the African nation.
Although Ghana allows licensed companies to do small-scale gold mining, “it’s still illegal for foreigners” to work in the sector, “and they will not be protected by Ghanaian laws”, the ministry said on Monday on the Chinese social media app WeChat.
Some Chinese citizens had been detained “in recent days” for working at Ghanaian gold mines illegally, it said, without providing details.
China’s embassy in Ghana alerted miners at the start of the new year that they faced the possibility of being arrested as the local government stepped up its crackdown on foreign operations.
An official from the embassy’s consular affairs department, who declined to be identified, said he could not say more about the matter.
