Women in Guinea-Bissau, angry with the environmental disasters caused by zirconium mining, set fire and destroyed the facilities managed by Chinese businessmen, as it became known by the Interior Ministry and eyewitnesses.

Many women and a local village leader were arrested after the incidents in the village of Nchicin, near the Valera resort, on the border with Senegal, the eyewitnesses said at the French Agency. Hundreds of demonstrators attacked the premises, the same sources said.

The exploitation of the mine has passed by 2022 in the hands of Chinese individuals.

“All the facilities were burned,” Interior Minister Botsce told reporters after visiting the site. “When the state is trying to find partners, no one has the right to destroy their property,” he added, obviously annoyed. The women “who vandalized the space (…) all left to hide in the woods. We need to identify and capture them. It is unacceptable to take such actions and then everything goes on as if nothing happened, “the minister continued.

A local official, Edmundo Infanta, said that “women were many” and Valera’s security forces failed to stop them.

“We explained to them that we did not want the sand to be mined without our consent,” said one demonstrator, Aisato Katzaf. “All of our masks were destroyed. There are no more fish in the river near the space (mining). No one took it into account despite our screams, “he said.

Guinea-Bissau is in the last positions of the UN Development Program. Political volatility and poverty favor the action of drug smugglers who use the country as a transit zone for cocaine produced in Latin America and is destined for Europe.