Heavy rain forces villagers to leave Indo Muro mining site

Several days of heavy rain in North Barito regency in Central Kalimantan province have caused flood in the mining site of Indo Muro Kencana (IMK) and forced people occupying the site to leave the area.

The Kalimantan Post daily reported that the occupiers had to leave the area because they couldn't do any mining activity due to the flood.

Some part of IMK's mining site had been occupied by people, reportedly to be mostly consisted of illegal miners.

But the paper said that the dispute between the occupiers and IMK was far from over.

The IMK had threatened the local authority to complete leave the province if the dispute was not immediately solve. The police had so far been able to evict land occupiers from the Serujan and Kerikil areas.

The police had yet to expel large number of occupiers from the Luit Raya area.

The local YSDM non-governmental organization has just accused the police of barring the supply of basic necessity including food to the Luit Raya area to force the occupiers to leave IMK's mining site.

But the police had denied this accusation, pointing out that it was merely guarding the road access to the Serujan and Kerikil areas to prevent people returning to the mining site. (*)