VietNamNet Bridge - The quietness of the town of Kham Duc in the central province of Quang Nam was broken last Thursday by the sudden arrival of 100 gold miners who had fled the mines of Phuoc Minh Co., Ltd.

Gold miners. (Photo: Tuoitre)

The workers apparently walked off their jobs at 7:00am, and ran nearly 100km, through forests and streams, to arrive at Kham Duc in the late afternoon of April 3. They were heard chanting the slogans “We are free!”.

All of the miners are teenagers of the Kh’Mu ethnic minority, from Thanh Chuong District in Nghe An Province.

"They did not pay us for months,” said one. “If we are arrested, we will be beaten badly. We worked in gold mines at a depth of dozens of meters without ventilators. Many people passed out at work. And the food was just horrible,” he added.

The gold mining firm says that the workers were incited to flee their jobs by another employer, looking to recruit them. They did not go strike but voluntarily quit their jobs, it claims. After some negotiation, many of them returned to work again, the company says.

The company also denies that they treat their workers harshly. "So far this year, four to five groups of workers have run off. But after running to the town, they returned to work again,” a representative of Phuoc Minh Gold Mining Company says.

Mr. Hoang Hoa, Head of Phuoc Son District’s People’s Committee Office, says the district authorities had asked the gold mining firm to report the incident. Local police have been assigned to investigate and clarify the case.

Hoa says if the workers were indeed treated as slaves, as some have claimed, the gold mining firm will be severely punished and possibly even shut down.

Zing