2014-11-21
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The body of Ayungaa, a 19-year old Mongolian herder killed by a Chinese mining truck, lies next to his grazing land in Abag Banner in western Inner Mongolia’s Shiliin-gol League, Nov. 8, 2014.
(Photo courtesy of SMHRIC.)
A young ethnic Mongolian herder on horseback died after being run over by a Chinese mining truck in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region this month in the fifth such case in more than three years, a rights group said Friday, amid a clampdown on information on the incident.
A mining truck from China’s Jin Di Mining Group ran over Ayungaa, a 19-year-old herder from Abag (in Chinese, Abaga) Banner in western Inner Mongolia’s Shiliin-gol (Xilingguolei) League, on his grazing land in Saruultal Gachaa, Bodgo ull Sum on Nov. 8. His horse also died under the vehicle’s wheels.
Enhebatu Togochog, director of the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), said calls placed to the herder’s father and other relatives, as well as to the local hospital where his body was taken, went unanswered.
He said local authorities were likely preventing them from speaking about the incident.
“Local authorities are very quick in response to sensitive cases, and they block everything and threaten family members” of victims so they don’t talk about such incidents, he told RFA.
Togochog said he not been able to obtain information from the mining trucking company, although local authorities provided a statement saying that the driver was being held at a detention center in the local banner—the administrative equivalent of a county.
A statement released by SMHRIC quoted a herdsman from Sarauutul Gachaa named Bayaraa, who uses one name as do many Mongolians, as saying that authorities had clamped down on the flow of information in the area after the incident.
“Surveillance is tight here, and no one is allowed to talk about this case online,” he said. “Even phone calls from us to the victim’s family members and relatives appear to be blocked.”
Abag Banner’s propaganda department issued a statement calling the incident a “traffic accident in which someone died in a place 184 meters (604 feet) from the cement road running from the Jin Di mining zone to its floatation mill,” SMHRIC said.
“The driver involved in the case remains in detention in the Abag Banner Public Security Bureau on the crime of a traffic accident,” it said, adding that authorities would “handle the case in a fair and open manner in accordance with laws.”
