Fifteen bodies have been brought out of an illegal goldmine in South Africa and 44 people have been taken out alive since Monday, after police blocked supplies of food, water and medicine to the workers underground in October in an attempt to force them out.
On Thursday, a letter brought up to the surface claimed there were 109 dead bodies underground. A video circulated by the NGO Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) appeared to show more than 50 wrapped bodies laid out in a tunnel.
Another video showed emaciated men begging to be sent food and rescued. Macua claimed there were between 400 and 800 people still alive and trapped underground at the Buffelsfontein mine near Stilfontein, about 100 miles south-west of Johannesburg.
Police launched Operation Vala Umgodi (plug the hole) in late 2023 in an effort to stamp out illegal mining. In early November, they said their prevention of essential supplies being sent down the mineshafts around Stilfontein had forced hundreds of miners to the surface since mid-October “as a result of starvation and dehydration”. Later in November and December, they allowed some supplies to be sent down.
South African authorities have repeatedly argued the miners were free to resurface and that those who remained underground were trying to avoid arrest, pointing to more than 1,500 people who have emerged from another mineshaft in the area. Activists claimed the two mines were not connected underground.
“I am happy, but at the very same time scared, because I don’t know what to expect,” Zinzi Tom, whose brother Ayanda was still reported to be underground on Tuesday morning, told the local TV station eNCA on Monday.
“[The government] said they would ‘smoke them out’, indeed they smoked them out … So I’m not OK, but I’m hoping for the best,” said Tom, who launched an urgent court case last week in response to the letter claiming 109 had died.
The authorities then launched the rescue operation, which they have said could take up to 16 days.
Illegal mining has flourished across South Africa’s north-eastern mining belt in recent years, as industrial mines have been exhausted and abandoned. There are about 30,000 zama zama miners, according to expert estimates, producing 10% of South Africa’s gold output in 6,000 abandoned mineshafts, often controlled by violent criminal syndicates.
A private company, Mines Rescue Services, is operating a crane-winched cage that can bring six people an hour to the surface. However, only local volunteers have been going down the 1.2-mile shaft at Buffelsfontein.
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“It’s too risky for private or state workers to go down with the cage because it’s known that some of the zama zamas are armed to the teeth, and some of those who emerged have given statements that they were held against their will,” said Makhosonke Buthelezi, a spokesperson for the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
The miners are either being arrested or taken to hospital, where they will recover before being detained, he said.
