Venezuela recovers remains of 14 missing miners

CARACAS, Venezuela – Searchers on Monday recovered the remains of 14 people belonging to a group of over 20 missing miners believed to have been killed by a gang seeking control over a wildcat gold claim in southeastern Venezuela, government officials said.

Police investigating the massacre made the grisly discovery in an area of jungle in Bolivar state near where the miners disappeared a week ago, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said in an interview with Globovision.

The massacre last week rocked Venezuelans accustomed to morbid tales of violence in a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates and widespread impunity. Fearing unrest after the state’s governor denied the killings took place and outraged relatives blocked a highway to Brazil in protest, President Nicolas Maduro’s government dispatched more than 1,000 soldiers and Cabinet officials to search for the missing miners.

The circumstances behind the massacre remain unclear. Ortega said she believes 21 people were killed by a criminal gang led by an Ecuadorean. But opposition politicians and relatives who have said they witnessed the attack put the number at 28 and contend local officials were involved, a claim the government denies.

One person linked to the gang’s ringleader has already been taken into custody and several more arrests are expected soon, Ortega said.

Venezuelan Ombudsman Tarek William Saab said the 14 bodies were found wrapped in black plastic bags and dumped in a mass grave. The remains had not yet been identified, he said.

Family members greeted the news with resignation mixed with anguish.

“This is very painful news for us after 12 days of suffering,” Yosleida Montilla, a mother of three of the disappeared miners, told The Associated Press.