Disused mine in South Africa: 60 bodies extracted in two days

“On the second day of operations, 106 live illegal miners were recovered and arrested for illegal mining. 51 were declared dead,” said the police in a press release, who had already retrieved nine remains on Monday, the first day of a rescue intervention.

The gondola, lowered by means of a specialized winch into a 2.6 km deep well, resumed its return trips on Wednesday to Stilfontein, about 150 km southwest of Johannesburg. A previous police report on Tuesday afternoon noted 36 bodies extracted since the day before.

The operation must last ten days in total to extract an unknown number of “zama zamas”, as illegal miners are called in South Africa.

The police mentioned several hundred of them when they began to restrict supplies to the site more than two months ago.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, visiting Stilfontein on Tuesday, did not wish to give a precise figure.

“Every number we have here is an estimate, a guess,” he said. “It’s impossible for someone to tell us ‘I know for sure there are so many of them’.”

Read also: Clandestine mine in South Africa: fifteen bodies extracted in two days

A video sent to AFP on Monday by the NGO Macua, which defends communities affected by mining activities, showed what appeared to be dozens of remains packed in the darkness of the galleries.

More than 1,500 illegal miners, most of them foreigners, have been arrested at the site by police since August.

Among them, “121 illegal miners have already been expelled, including 80 Mozambicans, 30 Basotho, 10 Zimbabweans and one Malawian,” the South African authorities identified.

The men with emaciated faces who came out of the well on Tuesday appeared particularly weakened. They were subject to a metal detector search by the police to ensure that they did not bring up any gold nuggets from the basement.

Authorities have been accused of trying to force miners to the surface of what looked like a small underground city, by reducing food and water supplies brought by relatives who make a living from the economy since early November. informal around the mine.

“We will smoke them out and they will come out,” said the minister to the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, in November, provoking indignant reactions.