Miners' hunger strike weakens

2004-05-25 11:51

Moscow - Twenty-two of more than 170 Russian coal miners on hunger strike for nine days in Siberia have been forced to give up their protest over unpaid wages because their health is failing.

"The men are feeling worse and worse. Some have developed chronic illnesses," Vyacheslav Bondarenko was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

But he added that "the protest will continue until the complete payment of all the back wages, even though there is no sign this will happen soon."

The mine in the region's desolate town of Chernogorsk has not been operational since January, when the workers refused to go into the mines without their pay.

They are owed 7.8 million rubles (about R1.75m) in wages. The mine has been temporarily closed because of safety concerns.

Last month, a Russian miner from the same pit, who also went on hunger strike because of unpaid wages, died of a heart attack.

He was one of a group of 58 miners, among them eight women, who joined the protest.

The current hunger strike by 176 miners began on May 16.

A court case began on Tuesday in Chernogorsk, near the regional capital Abakan, for non-payment of wages. But it was immediately adjourned until June 2, as neither the mine owners nor the plaintiffs attended, Itar-Tass reported.

Bondarenko explained that the miners were too weak to attend the hearing.

Russia, along with neighbouring Ukraine, has been struggling to figure out how it can shut down its mines, around which whole towns revolve, and which have been losing money for years, without putting families out of work.

The World Bank had sponsored a programme to help out the miners, but that project has been halted because of allegations that the earmarked money was being misspent.

In the most recent large-scale accident, 47 miners died in a blast in the struggling southern Siberian town of Osinniki in April.

- AFP