Carcas : The bodies of 17 miners have been found in a mass grave in Venezuela, from among 28missing after an armed attack, officials said Monday.
The bodies were found in a pit in the town of Tumeremo, in far southeastern Venezuela near the border with Brazil.
Family members say the miners failed to return home from their shifts on March 4, and reports soon emerged that they had been gunned down by attackers trying to take over their unlicensed small-scale gold mine.
"We have concluded the search for the missing people in Tumeremo with the discovery of 17bodies," Attorney General Luisa Ortega wrote on Twitter late Monday.
Ortega earlier told TV network Globovision that four bodies had been found, and that a suspect had been detained. The toll rose as investigators dug in the site.
Ortega however said that officials were "almost certain" that there were 21 miners, not 28.
According to witnesses the bodies of the slain miners were cut into pieces and loaded onto trucks, said Carlos Chancellor, the head of Sifontes, the municipality that includes Tumeremo.
President Nicolas Maduro last week ordered the army into the remote area in southeasternVenezuela, calling the case "a possible massacre in a war between gangs."
Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez said authorities suspect the attack on the miners was ordered by an Ecuadoran man with ties to Colombian paramilitaries named Jamilton Andres Ulloa Suarez, alias "The Mole."
The remote area is known for armed criminal groups, and local officials have speculated one of them may have tried to take over the unlicensed mine by force.
