STILFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — Death toll in one month confrontation between police and minors The number of people trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday. Authorities have faced growing anger and a possible investigation into their initial refusal to help the miners and, instead, “smoking” them out by cutting off their food supplies.
National police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said 78 bodies had been found a court-ordered rescue operationwith 246 survivors also pulled from the depths of the basement since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies were found before the rescue operation, without giving details.
Community groups launched their own rescue attempts when authorities said last year they would not help the hundreds of miners because they were “criminals”.
Minors are suspected of having died of starvation and dehydrationalthough no cause of death has been released.
South African authorities were heavily criticized for cutting off food and supplies to miners at the Buffelsfontein gold mine last year. This tactic to “scare them away”, as described by a prominent Cabinet minister, has been condemned by one of South Africa’s largest unions.
Police and mine owners were also accused of taking away ropes and dismantling a pulley system that miners used to enter the mine and lower supplies from the surface.
A court last year ordered authorities to allow food and water to be sent to the miners, while another court ruling last week forced them to launch a rescue operation.
Many say the disaster unfolding underground was clear a few weeks ago, when community members sporadically pulled rotting bodies from the mine, some with attached notes pleading for food to be sent.
“If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up,” said Johannes Qankase, a local community leader. “It is a shame for a constitutional democracy like ours. Someone needs to account for what happened here.
South Africa’s second-largest political party, part of a governing coalition, called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to launch an independent investigation to find out “why the situation could have gotten so out of control”.
“The scale of the underground disaster at Buffelsfontein is quickly proving to be as serious as feared,” the Democratic Alliance said.
Authorities now estimate that nearly 2,000 miners have been working illegally at the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August last year. Many of them have resurfaced on their own in recent months, police said, and all survivors have been arrested, although some emerged this week very emaciated and barely able to walk to the ambulances waiting for them.
A convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to evacuate the bodies.
Mathe said at least 13 children were also pulled out of the mine before the official rescue operation.
Police announced Wednesday they were ending the operation after three days and said they believed no one else was in hiding. A camera was sent Thursday into a cage that was used to extract survivors and bodies to ensure no one was left behind, Mathe said.
The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa and is a maze of tunnels and levels to which several shafts lead. The miners worked up to 2.5 kilometers underground in different groups.
Police said the miners were able to exit through several shafts but refused for fear of arrest. This has been disputed by groups representing the miners, who say hundreds of them were trapped and left to starve in the dark and damp, with decomposing bodies around them.
Last year, the first police operation to force miners out and surrender for arrest was part of a broader national crackdown on illegal mining called Vala Umgodi, or Shut It Up. hole. Illegal mining is often in the news in South Africa and is a major problem for authorities, as large groups travel to mines that have been closed to extract remaining deposits.
Gold-rich South Africa has around 6,000 abandoned or closed mines.
Illegal miners, known as “zama zamas” – “hustlers” or “chancers” in the Zulu language – are usually armed and part of criminal syndicates, according to the government, and they steal from South Africa more than ‘a billion dollars of gold per year. deposits. They are often undocumented foreign nationals and authorities have said the vast majority of people leaving the Buffelsfontein mine are from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho and are in South Africa illegally.
Police said they seized gold, explosives, guns and more than $2 million in cash from the miners and defended their hard line.
“By providing food, water and basic necessities to these illegal miners, police would be entertaining and allowing crime to flourish,” Mathe said Wednesday.
But the South African Federation of Trade Unions questioned the government’s humanity and how it could “allow anyone – whether a citizen or an undocumented immigrant – to starve to death in the depths of the earth”.
Although the police operation was condemned by civic groups, the disaster did not provoke a strong wave of anger in South Africa, where the mostly foreign zama zamas have long been considered unwelcome in a countries already struggling with high rates of violent crime.
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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
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AP Africa News: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
