Police today confirmed that three Guyanese miners working for a Brazilian were shot dead when their camp at Imataka on the Venezuelan side of the border was raided by gunmen on Tuesday morning.
Police identified the dead men as Vernon Eudoxie, 55; Cologne Solomon, 23, and Samuel Moses, 19 all of Port Kaituma.
One of the injured Guyanese men has been identified as Joel Paton, 22, of Supenaam Creek. He is a patient at the Port Kaituma Hospital.
Three others were wounded. At around 6.25 am today, three bodies arrived at the Port Kaituma mortuary in the northwest.
The police said that the men were working at Imataka in Venezuela, three miles away from the Guyana border. The camp was raided on Tuesday around 4 am by gunmen. The gunmen demanded valuables after which they opened fire.
Police Commander Ravindradat Budhram said that the killings occurred in Venezuela, the police are limited in terms of their investigations.
Solomon is an ex-policeman.
One of the survivors told Stabroek News that the camp comprised 11 persons: eight Guyanese and three Brazilians. The men were asleep at the time and awoke to the sound of machine gunfire and commands from Spanish-speaking men. The survivor told Stabroek News that several of them had to be pretend to be dead during the ordeal that lasted a few minutes.
In recent days local police have been addressing raids in the Cuyuni area by foreign-speaking gunmen.
Observers note that with with deep economic crisis in Venezuela there could likely be a surge in cross-border attacks on miners.
