Eight gold miners were shot and killed late Wednesday in the department of Cauca when a group of camouflaged men opened fire on them as they exited the mine.
The mayor of Suarez, the municipality where the incident took place, said that the gunmen had fired indiscriminately upon ten miners who were leaving a gold mine, killing eight, wounding one, and that one remains missing, reports RCN Radio.
Authorities learned of the incident through the testimony of the only known survivor, who said he faked his death to escape.
Crime scene investigators and officials from Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, who have already arrived to the area to recover the bodies and begin their investigation, initially pointed towards the FARC’s 30th Front as the culprits.
However, according to a Colombian military official in the region, the incident appears to be the result of a dispute between local miners. “The forensic team has already arrived and begun their investigation, but we think that this is about a vendetta, about revenge between miners.”
The mayor of Suarez explained that the dead miners were not from the area, but had come from another area to Suarez due to “gold fever.”
Reports suggest that the group of miners had arrived to Suarez a few hours prior to the incident and that they came from the department of Choco.