Illegal miners ‘starving’ underground in stand-off with S. African cops; decomposed body taken out
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Community members watching as a police official inspects the outside of a mine where illegal miners are believed to be hiding in South Africa on Nov 15.
PHOTO: REUTERS
STILFONTEIN, South Africa – Illegal miners at a disused South African shaft are starving because the police are limiting supplies in an attempt to force out the hundreds believed to be underground, a miner and a community leader said on Nov 17.
One decomposed body was taken out last week from the shaft at Stilfontein, about 140km south-west of Johannesburg, and there are fears there may be more.
“There’s nothing left for someone to eat, to drink or anything that can make a human being survive. There is nothing left underground for now,” said 35-year-old miner Ayanda Ndabeni who was hoisted out the shaft by rope on Nov 15.
Around a dozen people have resurfaced in the past week when the authorities intermittently blocked residents from lowering down food and water in a nearly two-weeks push to empty the shaft.
A court ordered on Nov 16 that the police must end all restrictions at the abandoned gold mine shaft, a rough hole in the ground in an area of open veld where they were stationed on Nov 17 to see if any more people emerged.
Residents were able to lower 600 packets of instant porridge and 600 litres of water by rope on Nov 16, community leader Johannes Qankase told AFP, welcoming the court order.
This was the first supply that has been delivered since Nov 12, he said.
“We can save lives now,” he said. “They must get food, they must get water, they must get their medical pills.”
“We’ve seen from the people who have been resurfacing, they are very weak, they are very dehydrated,” he said.
Earlier this week, a resident claimed to have been told there were around 4,000 miners underground. The police said the figure was probably in the hundreds.
The reaction of the authorities has outraged many in South Africa, particularly the comments of the Minister of Presidency, Ms Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who told reporters on Nov 13: “Honestly, we’re not sending help to criminals, we’re going to smoke them out.”
Thousands of illegal miners, many of them hailing from other countries, are said to operate in abandoned mine shafts in mineral-rich South Africa.
Locally known as “zama zamas” – “those who try” in the Zulu language – the miners frustrate mining companies and are accused of criminality by residents.
“We are calling on all those illegal miners to resurface,” police spokeswoman Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said on Nov 17.
The government has said it would assemble a team of mine rescue experts to suggest a plan to remove all the miners, she said. AFP
