One hundred ten Turkish coal miners who had marched 200 kilometers (125 miles) to stage a hunger strike over their unpaid wages were detained on Tuesday morning, their union said.
After a nine-day march to Ankara from the neighboring province of Eskişehir, the miners arrived on Monday for a topless sit-in outside the country’s energy ministry building in the Turkish capital, before being surrounded by the police.
“We are hungry,” several of them had written across their bare skin.
“We were waiting to speak to someone outside the energy ministry. The only response we received was the arrest of 110 of our colleagues,” the Bağımsız Maden-İş miners’ union said on X.
The lignite miners are demanding the payment of outstanding wages and redundancy pay from their employer, Doruk Mining.
“In this country, workers don’t count, only money matters. … Shame on those who run this country,” mining union chief Gökay Çakır told the striking miners on Monday evening.
When questioned by Agence France-Presse, the energy ministry declined to comment for the time being.
© Agence France-Presse