Rescuers recover dead survivors from South African mine as hundreds remain trapped

STILFONTEIN, South Africa — Rescuers sent a cage-like structure into one of South Africa’s deepest gold mines on Tuesday to bring out survivors among hundreds of illegal miners trapped for months in an abandoned shaft. It is estimated that more than 100 people died from starvation or dehydration.

Civic organizations and groups representing miners say at least 24 bodies and 34 survivors have been removed from the Buffelsfontein gold mine since Friday, but more than 500 miners are believed to still be underground, many of them sick and hungry. Police said they don’t know exactly how many are left, but it’s likely in the hundreds.

Six of the bodies and eight survivors were found early Tuesday, said Mzukisi Jam, regional chair of the South African National Civics Organisation, an umbrella organization for civic and rights groups. Jam was at the mine.

The mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, has been the scene of a tense standoff between police, miners and members of the local community since November, when authorities first launched an operation to try to expel the minors. Relatives of the miners say some of them have been underground since July.

Authorities say the miners are able to get out and refuse, but this has been disputed by rights groups and activists, who have fiercely criticized police tactics of cutting off the miners’ food and water supplies. miners from the surface to try to force them out. . Rights groups say many miners are starving and unable to get out of the shaft because the shaft is too steep and the ropes and pulley system they entered have been removed.

“We are happy that this (rescue) operation is taking place, although we believe that if it had been carried out earlier we would not have even a single death,” Jam said.

Illegal mining is common in parts of South Africa rich in gold, where companies close mines that are no longer profitable, letting groups of informal miners enter illegally to try to find remaining deposits.

Large groups of illegal miners often spend months in hiding to maximize their profits, taking with them food, water, generators and other equipment, but also relying on other members of their group above ground to send more supplies.

Some have escaped from the mine since November and been arrested, authorities confirmed, although the exact number is unclear. Police say the minors are afraid of being arrested if they go out.

Human rights activists said the only way out for the miners was to make a dangerous journey to another shaft, which can take days, and crawl through it. They said many miners were too weak or too sick to go out. The mine is 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) deep and has several shafts, many levels and is a maze of tunnels. The community mining group said there are many groups of miners in various parts of the mine.

Residents gathered near the mine, desperately waiting for news of their family members. The community staged its own rescue operation on Friday before the authorities’ official operation began on Monday.

“The last time I spoke to my brother was in July, when he told us he was going underground,” said Zinzi Tom, sister of one of the miners who remained underground. “We had no news of him, but yesterday one of the miners who surfaced said they saw him about two weeks ago. Apparently he is very sick and struggling to survive.

The group Mining Affected Communities United in Action, which sued authorities in December to force them to allow food, water and medicine to be sent to miners, released two cellphone videos that they say came from the basement and showed dozens of corpses. miners wrapped in plastic. A spokesperson for the group said “at a minimum” 100 miners had died.

The cellphone videos, purportedly taken from deep within the mine, are filmed by a man who can be heard saying: “It’s hunger. People are starving,” as he films emaciated-looking men sitting on the damp mine floor. He adds: “Please help us. Bring us something to eat or take us out.

South Africa’s police minister and mineral resources minister were due to visit the mine on Tuesday, while authorities are under scrutiny for their tactics.

South African Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters in November that the government would not help the miners, whom he considered “criminals.”

“We don’t send aid to criminals,” she said, according to local media. “We’ll smoke them out. They’ll come out.”

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

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