The government of South Africa said on Thursday it will not assist a group of illegal miners who became trapped in a mine shaft with minimal supplies after police sealed off the entrance.
The miners can leave at any time, provided they are ready to be placed under arrest by the police waiting for them outside.
The illegal gold mine has been targeted by a police operation called Vala Umgodi (“Close the Hole,”) which aims to crack down on unlicensed digs by sealing off the mine entrances employed by illegal crews to obtain food, water, and other supplies.
The miners are known as zama zama, a Zulu phrase that means “take a chance.” Many of them are illegal migrants from other countries. Mineral-rich South Africa has a large number of illegal mines, spread across a vast area that is difficult to police. Zama zama miners live underground for weeks or months at a time to escape detection, relying on local suppliers to pass them food, water, cigarettes, tools, and other supplies through small tunnels.
The operation in Stilfontein, a town in South Africa’s North West province, is one of the largest “Close the Hole” exercises to date. According to police reports, roughly a thousand zama zama miners have already emerged from tunnels in the Stilfontein area and been arrested – but almost 4,000 more could be holed up underground.
“We feel that the numbers are being exaggerated. We have deployed maximum resources to this case including our intelligence operatives, who are on the ground who have engaged with all stakeholders. We have managed to estimate the numbers to be between 350 and 400,” police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said on Thursday.
Hundreds of people trapped underground is still an alarming situation, especially since no one is quite certain how long the miners have been down there. Some Stilfontein residents are pleading with the authorities to send supplies into the mine, but they have adamantly refused.
“We have taken a decision that no police officer, no soldier or government official will go down to an abandoned mine. There is a high risk of loss of life,” Mathe said, citing reports of “hazardous gasses” underground.
“We have consulted with the mining company and the Department of Mineral Resources, and they are telling us that it is unsafe. It is inhumane to allow people to go down there,” she said.
Mathe added the police have reason to believe the miners could be heavily armed. Hundreds of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been seized in police operations against zama zama miners since December, along with about $275,000 in cash and $1.75 million worth of uncut diamonds.
One reason for the ramped-up “Close the Hole” operation, which began in mid-October, was a rash of reports from locals that the illegal miners were committing robberies and rapes in the area. Gangs of miners have also been known to engage in fierce turf battles.
“As a caring government, we have gone to great lengths to allow these illegal miners to resurface, and it seems as though they are refusing,” Mathe said, accusing the illegal miners of attempting to “blackmail” the government by making their situation appear more dire than it really was.
“We are told by intelligence that they are refusing to resurface. No one is trapped,” she declared.
“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped. We didn’t send them there,” said Cabinet Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni at a press conference on Wednesday.
The most recent group of five miners to surrender on Wednesday were sick and weak from malnutrition. Busi Thabane, who works for a charity called the Benchmarks Foundation, told the BBC on Thursday that the situation in the Stilfontein mines has become a “humanitarian crisis.”
“It’s not as easy as the police make it seem – some of them are fearing for their lives. For many of them, it’s the only way they know how to put food on the table,” she said of the miners.
“Those people must come out because we have brothers there, we have sons there, the fathers of our kids are there, our children are struggling,” a local woman said. Other residents said at least one dead body has been pulled from a blockaded mine shaft.
The South African Human Rights Commission is threatening to investigate the police for cutting off food and water to the miners, but some South Africans are praising the police operation on social media for taking a tough stance against lawlessness.
“I love this. Finally, our government is not tiptoeing on these serious matters. Decisiveness will help this country,” said an approving social media post quoted by the BBC.
