After body of illegal miner retrieved, Stilfontein zama zamas claim dead piling up underground
According to a note sent up to the surface on Tuesday, they claim that at least half a dozen illegal miners have died since police cut off food and water supplies in a bid to force them out of the disused shaft.
Images from shaft 10 in Stilfontein were the 14 Zama zamas came out of on Sunday night. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/ Eyewitness News.
JOHANNESBURG - Illegal miners occupying an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein claim that dead bodies have started to pile up underground as hunger and dehydration take their toll on the zama zamas.
According to a note sent up to the surface on Tuesday, they claim that at least half a dozen illegal miners have died since police cut off food and water supplies in a bid to force them out of the disused shaft.
In November, law enforcement intensified Operation Vala Umgodi, with mining experts recently roped in to help bring illegal miners to the surface.
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The bodies of two illegal miners have been retrieved in less than a month, this includes an unidentified man brought up to the surface by community members on Tuesday.
The autopsies of the zama zamas are yet to be concluded but community activists have already put the blame on the doorstep of police.
Written on a clean piece of A4 paper and attached to the latest body recovered, the illegal miners sent a note pleading for quick intervention.
The body of an undentified illegal miner has been recovered from shaft 11 at the abandoned Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein. This was initially meant to be an operation to send food, water and medical supplies down the shaft. This is the second body📸MACUA@khanya_mntambo pic.twitter.com/ouOSD7Ucv1
— EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) December 3, 2024
A note was attached to the decomposed body.
— EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) December 3, 2024
"We apologise to tell you about the people who are dying in the mine. We have 1 person who is dead because of shortage of food, while some of lying down they have no response. Please take us out of this mine." @khanya_mntambo https://t.co/mtbjY6C1KY pic.twitter.com/DkCWn9w9Sq
They claimed that the conditions underground were unbearable, warning that more deaths would follow if they weren't helped to resurface from the shaft soon.
Other illegal miners that resurfaced last week also told of desperate conditions underground, corroborating accounts that there had already been multiple deaths.
Phase three of the operation to bring illegal miners up to the surface is yet to begin, more than two weeks since a task team was established.
In the interim, a court order has given lobby groups the go-ahead to send humanitarian aid down the shaft for now.