Nine people were killed and more than a dozen injured in an attack on a gold mine in northern Peru, authorities said on Saturday.

A group of “armed criminals” raided the Poderosa mine in the province of Pataz, Peru’s interior ministry said in a statement on social media platform X, “violently confronting the company’s internal security.”

The ministry said that seven attackers had been apprehended and that police had “taken control of the situation.”

Among the dead were seven security guards who tried to repel the attack and two miners.

The latter were killed when the assailants threw explosives into the mine shaft, authorities said.

The ministry reported that 15 people had been wounded, but local media later put the number at 23.

Authorities said they were still investigating the motive for the attack, according to local press reports.

In May, at least 27 workers died in a fire at a gold mine in Peru’s southern Arequipa region.

Mining is one of the engines of the Peruvian economy, accounting for more than eight percent of GDP.