More than twenty illegal miners were rescued and fifteen bodies hoisted to the surface of an abandoned gold mine in South Africa in two days, said Tuesday the police who have surrounded the well for more than two months to dislodge its occupants.
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Fifteen bodies have been extracted from this Stilfontein gold pit since the start of a rescue operation launched on Monday using a basket and a specialized winch, the spokesperson for the South Police told AFP. African Athlenda Mathe.
In total, “24 people have been confirmed dead” since August at this site located approximately 140 km southwest of Johannesburg, said Deputy National Commissioner Tebello Mosikili.
“Last week, we received a letter brought up from underground indicating that there were more than 109 remains,” assures AFP one of the spokespersons for the inhabitants of the township of Khuma, Levies Pilusa, aged 41.
The number of people still in this almost two km deep gold pit is unknown, but according to the police, who have been carrying out an operation since November to dislodge illegal miners, there could be several hundred. In mid-November, some local sources had cited the figure of up to 4,000 people.
Thousands of illegal miners, often from other countries and called “zama zamas” (“those who try” in Zulu), are believed to be working in abandoned mine shafts across mineral-rich South Africa.
Johannes Qankase, a community leader, told AFP on Tuesday that 26 people had been rescued. “They are very sick and very dehydrated. We can see it, they are almost dying,” he said of the survivors.
Supported by police, these haggard-faced miners staggering in rubber boots too big for their wasted calves passed a metal detector at the exit of the shaft to ensure that they did not bring up any gold nuggets, noted an AFP team.
Most of them were taken to hospital and two were reportedly taken into custody, Qankase said, as rescue operations continued.
For months, access to this mine has been sealed off as part of the police operation.
Authorities have been accused of trying to force the miners to the surface of what resembled a small underground city, by reducing food and water supplies brought to them by the local community since early November, who lived in the informal economy around the mine.
“We will smoke them out and they will come out,” said the Minister to the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, in November.
The government said Monday that more than 1,000 people involved in illegal mining activities in the area have come back and been apprehended so far.
In recent weeks, miners who have emerged from the shaft have reported acute hunger and dehydration underground. Some were arrested for not having the official documents allowing them to be in the country.
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