Illegal mining of precious rubies from the northern Mozambican province of Niassa was reaching ”alarming proportions”, a report in the state-controlled daily Noticias paper said on Friday.
‘We’re seeing a proliferation of illegal mining activity of rubies in M’sawize in Niassa province and it is reaching alarming proportions,†the Mines and Natural Resources Minister Esperanca Bias told the Maputo-based paper in a report posted on the newspaper’s website.
Bias said the mineral which is used in the manufacture of jewellery was illegally exported to Thailand in Asia.
She did not give figures on the quantity of the illegal exports.
Bias said the discovery of the illegal exports was the latest in a string of discoveries of deposits of precious or semi-precious stones, which were then exploited illegally, with little or no benefit to the country.
Last year there was an influx of local and foreign illegal miners in Manica province, near the border with Zimbabwe, after reports of diamond discoveries.
Several illegal miners died when some of the unsecured mines collapsed.
Authorities responded by arresting the illegal miners who included Cameroonians, Nigerians, Somalians, Zimbabweans and locals.
The ministry of mineral resources licenses mining operations, but control over mineral resources was exercised by police, the border guards and the customs service.
Control was often poor because of the country’s porous border. — Sapa