Personnel of the Ghana Police Service and their colleagues from the military say they will defend themselves if attacked by illegal small-scale miners (galamseyers), Director General of the PR Unit of the Police, ACP David Eklu has said.

His warning comes on the heels of the killing of one suspected galamseyer at Wawase in the Ashanti Region on Sunday, 6 August by personnel of Operation Vanguard – the anti-galamsey taskforce set up by the presidency to put an end to illegal small-scale mining across the country.

While the taskforce insists its personnel shot to defend themselves, residents of the mining town claim the Vanguards told blatant lies since the alleged miners had no weapons on them.

ACP Eklu sounded a note of caution to the galamseyers that they should not try to resist the work of the taskforce because “if they [personnel] are attacked, our officers also have the right to defend themselves.”

“If you try and use, we’ll have to use the level of force that will subdue the force that you are using,” he told Accra-based Citi FM in an interview.

So far, the Vanguards have arrested over 80 galamseyers at Osinor, Tarkwa and Obuasi just a week into their operations.