EKOK, Cameroon—It was just before 5 a.m. local time when two pickup trucks allegedly carrying mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group pulled up in front of Zaza and five other men, who were patrolling the areas near the Chimbolo gold mine in the Central African Republic.

The vigilantes—who are among hundreds of men drawn from the Chimbolo village to prevent hoodlums and robbers from attacking the buildings and electrical installations in the high-crime area—were on the street leading to the gold mine near the eastern town of Bambari on Sunday. They described the men in the pickup trucks as “white soldiers” who were dressed in the same military regalia often worn by the Russian mercenary group.

EKOK, Cameroon—It was just before 5 a.m. local time when two pickup trucks allegedly carrying mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group pulled up in front of Zaza and five other men, who were patrolling the areas near the Chimbolo gold mine in the Central African Republic.

The vigilantes—who are among hundreds of men drawn from the Chimbolo village to prevent hoodlums and robbers from attacking the buildings and electrical installations in the high-crime area—were on the street leading to the gold mine near the eastern town of Bambari on Sunday. They described the men in the pickup trucks as “white soldiers” who were dressed in the same military regalia often worn by the Russian mercenary group.

The vigilantes then rushed into the gold mine where they allegedly found the security guards, local Central Africans, tied up—with dead bodies littered around them on the ground.

“We counted nine dead bodies of Chinese men,” another vigilante, who was at the scene after the attack, told The Daily Beast. “Two other Chinese men, as well as a Central African soldier, had bullet wounds mostly on their hands and legs but were still alive when we saw them.”

Without providing any evidence, the Russian-allied CAR government said shortly after the incident that the attack was a “terrorist act” carried out by militants from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC)—a fusion of major rebel groups in CAR created in December 2020 to disrupt the 2020–21 Central African general election. Their objective, according to government spokesperson Ghislain Djori, “is to discourage investors wishing to support the efforts undertaken by the President of the Republic Faustin Archange Touadera.”

Following the attack, the government has promised that “perpetrators of this crime will be hunted down to their last entrenchment,” but the fact that it puts the blame on the CPC, which in turn accused the Wagner Group of carrying out the killings, has led to suspect a cover-up to protect the Russians.