Canadian mining company Vizsla Silver has temporarily suspended operations at its Pánuco project, located in Concordia, Sinaloa, following the kidnapping of ten workers on January 23, 2016.
In an official statement released on Thursday, January 28, the company reported that the incident is currently under investigation and that information is limited.
Vizsla Silver indicated that it has notified local authorities and that its crisis management and security response teams are actively involved. “The company’s immediate priority is the safety and well-being of those involved,” the company stated in the document.
It specified that, as a precautionary measure, the company decided to temporarily suspend certain activities at the site and in nearby areas.
The suspension of operations affects the Pánuco silver and gold mining project, considered one of the company’s most important. The case has generated alarm in the Mexican mining sector. The Mexican Association of Mining, Metallurgical, and Geological Engineers expressed its concern over the illegal detention of the workers and requested the prompt intervention of state authorities.
The victims, mostly engineers and operational staff, disappeared after leaving the camp where they were staying overnight in the La Clementina housing development.
The wife of one of the victims recounted in media interviews that the last time she spoke with her husband was Thursday night, and since Friday morning he has not answered her calls: “The version they gave us is that they were in their rest area; it was 7:30 in the morning when they were getting ready to go to work,” she told Radio Fórmula.
The Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office received the formal complaint on January 24 and opened an investigation into the disappearance committed by private individuals. The operation included coordination with state and federal authorities, as well as the State Commission for the Search of Missing Persons, to conduct searches in the area, although the workers have not yet been found.
The miner’s wife explained that the workers operate on 20-day shifts followed by 10-day breaks, during which they have the opportunity to communicate with family members. “My husband was due to return this week, and now I have to explain to his daughters that their father isn’t coming back,” she lamented.
She explained that they haven’t received any useful information from either the company or the authorities for six days: “Neither the company nor the authorities are telling us anything. We don’t know what’s happening. All the families are very worried.”
The families have had to travel to Sinaloa and handle paperwork in different states, as many are originally from Sonora. “We had to approach them. We had to go to Sinaloa to speak with the Attorney General’s Office so they could give us information, and so we could give them information,” recounted the wife of one of the victims.
So far, they have not received any extortion calls or ransom demands. They also don’t know exactly what the missing men were wearing on the day of their abduction. The families are asking for an intensified search and the involvement of more agencies, such as the Army and Navy: “We would like them to support us, to put more people into the search. It’s not just one or two people, it’s ten workers who were going to work, to bring food home.”
The same source revealed that in April of last year, one of the engineers had an encounter with armed men who intercepted him and warned him not to travel through certain areas. This incident was not reported, however, there are no further clues as to why the miners were taken.
Who are the 10 kidnapped miners?
José Ángel Hernández Vélez, 38 years old
Francisco Antonio Esparza Yáñez, 65 years old
José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, 35 years old
Saúl Alberto Ochoa Pérez, 35 years old
Antonio de la O Valdez, 30 years old
Ignacio Aurelio Salazar Flores, 37 years old
Security providers kidnapped:
José Antonio Jiménez Nevárez, 32 years old
Javier Emilio Valdez Valenzuela, 40 years old
Javier Guillermo Vargas Valle, 40 years old
Miguel Tapia Rayón, 40 years old
Source: infobae
