More than 100 feared dead as videos show bodies and trapped miners in South Africa
Rescuers were sending a cage-like structure into one of South Africa’s deepest mines on Tuesday in an attempt to bring out survivors among hundreds of illegal miners trapped underground for months in an abandoned shaft.
Rescuers were sending a cage-like structure into one of South Africa’s deepest mines on Tuesday in an attempt to bring out survivors among hundreds of illegal miners trapped underground for months in an abandoned shaft. More than 100 are believed to have died of starvation or dehydration.
A group representing the miners said that at least 18 bodies and 26 survivors have been brought out of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine since Friday, but more than 500 miners are still believed to be underground. Police said they are uncertain how many remain, but it is likely to be hundreds.
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 and force the miners out. Reports say some of them have been underground since July or August last year.
Authorities say the miners are able to come out and are refusing, but that has been disputed by rights groups and activists, who have fiercely criticized police tactics in cutting off the miners’ food and water supplies from the surface in an attempt to force them out. The rights groups say many of the miners are effectively dying of starvation and unable to climb out because the shaft is too steep and the ropes and pulley system they used to enter have been removed.
South African Police officers during a rescue operation to retrieve illegal miners from an abandoned gold shaft in Stilfontein on Jan. 13, 2025.Christian Velcich / AFP - Getty ImagesIllegal mining is common in parts of gold-rich South Africa where companies close down mines that are no longer profitable, leaving groups of informal miners to illegally enter them to try and find leftover deposits.
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