Brazilian illegal gold digger killed by gendarme in French Guiana – 2024-04-25 03:15:52

2024-04-25 03:15:52

Wednesday October 20, 2021. As part of a mission to combat clandestine gold panning (LCOI), soldiers from the 9th Rima of Saint-Jean du Maroni, accompanied by 4 OPJ gendarmes, discovered an illegal gold panning site on the Sparouine cove (tributary of the Maroni river). The military invades the site. The soldiers search the bottom of a barranque in search of engines and pumps, submerged by the gold miners before their escape.

An illegal gold digger of Brazilian nationality was killed on Thursday in a forest in western French Guiana by a gendarme during a mission to combat illegal extraction, the Cayenne prosecutor informed AFP on Sunday.

On Thursday around noon, when a mixed patrol of the gendarmerie and the armed forces of Guyana stopped four quadricycles “decided to break through”, a Brazilian, “despite the usual warnings, rushed towards a gendarme with a machete in his hand,” said prosecutor Yves Le Clair.

A second gendarme from the GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group), “was forced to open fire to protect his colleague,” according to the magistrate’s account.

Shot in the shoulder, the man did not survive his injuries.

An investigation was opened and entrusted to the investigation section of the Cayenne gendarmerie.

These events took place near a tributary of the Abounami River, in the commune of Papaichton, a place in western Guyana affected by illegal gold extraction.

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© Agence France-Presse