After taking hold of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon more than a week ago, a group of armed militiamen plan to hold a community meeting on Friday to explain their mission and announce when they will leave.

On Tuesday, Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum announced that the occupiers will host a meeting on Friday to explain why they took over the building and when they will leave. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. EST, KTVZ-TV reported. It was not immediately clear where the meeting would take place.

Ammon Bundy and his armed band took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a federally owned wildlife outpost in the remote region of Burns, Oregon, on Jan. 2. Since then, the group has demanded the release of two local ranchers, Dwight Hammond, 73, and his son Steven, 46, who were recently imprisoned for setting fires that spread to government land.

The occupiers, who have named themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom, have also vowed to remain in the building until locals are given control of the federally owned land.

The announcement comes as local residents of Burns continue to express frustration over the occupation at community town hall meetings. Community members have denounced the armed occupation and pleaded for it to come to an end.

"The Hammonds have turned themselves in. It is time for you to leave our community. Go home, be with your own families and end this peacefully," Harney County Sheriff David Ward said last week, according to CNN.

"The people on the refuge - and those who they have called to our community - obviously have no consideration for the wishes or needs of the people of Harney County," Ward added in a statement Monday, reports NBC News. "If they did, they, too, would work to bring this situation to a peaceful close."

Meanwhile, the FBI has not made an attempt to take back the isolated building in hopes of bringing a peaceful end to the standoff.

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