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QUETTA (AFP): Thousand of coal miners in Balochistan have quit their jobs, while many have fled the province after killings of 10 Hazara workers at a colliery last month, officials informed on Thursday.
According to government officials and labour organizations, up to 15,000 workers had downed tools since the murder of the Hazara group, forcing around 200 mines to close and slashing production.
Militant groups regularly extort protection money from colliery owners or kidnap workers for ransom. Failure to pay often results in deadly violence.
“Local workers ask for high pay and owners have to pay them compensation, in case of an accident,” Habib Tahir, provincial chief of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told an international news agency.
However, Behroz Reiki, president of a mine owners´ association, said the current situation was also causing grave hardship for local communities. “A closure of a coal mine means no jobs for the security guards and other employees,” he added.
Atif Hussain, an official from the government´s mines department, insisted security had been beefed up. “We have provided special security to the Hazara workers,” he said, adding, “Now they move in a police escort.”
Some mines had re-opened after government forces increased security, said MirDad Khel, the head of a local coal miners´ association, but many miners were still scared. “Fifty percent of the workers are still reluctant to return,” he added.
Ten Hazara miners were kidnapped by gunmen from a remote colliery in early January before being taken to nearby hills where most were shot dead, and some beheaded. It prompted huge protests among Hazaras, who make up most of the Shiite population in Quetta.