At the time of their arrest in Nyarurama village, Bugoba cell, Rukoma sector, they were also drinking alcohol.<\/p>\n
The Southern region Police spokesperson Superintendent of Police (SP) Theobald said that the suspects were arrested during the operations to enforce the government directives on Covid-19.<\/p>\n
“The group had gathered in a bar belonging to one Philbert Ntwari, contrary to the directives against Covid-19. Besides, all of them belong to a criminal ring that conducts illegal mining activities in Rukoma, and this was a target operation based on credible information that they were holding a meeting to plan the next move in their unlawful mining activities,” SP Kanamugire said.<\/p>\n
The group was also using minors in mining especially to wash and clean minerals in streams.<\/p>\n
Article 54 of the law N\u00b0 58\/2018 of 13\/08\/2018 on mining and quarry operations, states that; “any person, who undertakes mineral or quarry exploration, exploitation, processing or trading without a licence commits an offence.”<\/p>\n
Upon conviction, the offender is liable to imprisonment for a term of between two and six months and a fine of not less than Frw1 million and not more than Rwf5 million or only one of these penalties.<\/p>\n
The court also orders confiscation of any seized minerals or quarry in storage, trading or processing without a license.<\/p>\n
Article 166 of the law determining offenses and penalties in general states that any person convicted for theft is liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than one year and not more than two years and a fine of not less than Rwf1 million and not more than Rwf2 million, community service in a period of six (6) months or only one of these penalties.<\/p>\n
The group will also be fined for holding a social gathering contrary to the government directives against the spread of Covid-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Ten suspected illegal miners belonging to a group that calls itself ‘Abahebyi’ were arrested on Sunday, August 8, in Kamonyi District where they were holding a meeting to lay plans on how to sneak into concessions in Rukoma Sector to steal and extract more minerals.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-44109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44109"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=44109"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=44109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}