Ntsokolo, a 40-year-old father of six children, survived underground for 18 days with no food except scraps of expired goods. He said he would be willing to testify during upcoming hearings of the SAHRC, but had not yet been approached.

A date for the SAHRC hearings has yet to be announced, but the 30 May deadline for public submissions has closed.

In an interview, Ntsokolo said he witnessed fellow miners succumb to hunger and eat human flesh. This corroborates media reports and affidavits from several miners that were submitted to the Constitutional Court.

“We tried to tell them, hey man, you cannot do that. They said these human bodies are like pork,” said Ntsokolo. Miners were drinking brack salty water, he said.

During Operation Vala Umgodi, the police were assigned to “smoke out” illegal miners from the hijacked gold mine. The operation garnered global attention in January, when images were broadcast showing survivors – and body bags – being pulled to the surface from shaft 11 in a metal cage during a court-ordered rescue operation.

“Everyone wanted to come out… Everyone was like, ‘Being in jail is much better than being in this jail of the mine.’”

Ntsokolo made his break 1.2km underground by making his way to Shaft 10.

“I told myself, I am not going to die here. I have to go out. God, please help me, I am not going to die here.”

He surfaced five days later, on Christmas Day, and was arrested immediately.

“After what we’ve been through, when we got to the surface, the police were pointing guns at us. They saw us as hardcore criminals,” he said.

Ntsokolo was charged with trespassing and illegal mining. On 29 May 2025, he was sentenced to seven months in prison or a R7,000 fine. He said he spent four days behind bars while arranging payment.

“I’m ready to tell the Human Rights Commission everything that happened,” he said. “They need to know the truth.”

Amid a death toll of at least 93, the government’s Natjoints police-led operation is accused of effectively trapping illegal miners underground for months without food, water or medicine.

At the time, the police presented a united front. But, months later, and with the HRC inquiry under way, it seems some police officers might speak out about alleged wrongdoing.

Johannes Dire, North West Provincial Secretary Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU), said that the union is aware of accusations of misconduct within the police. But he said the inquiry would likely clear the police of wrongdoing.

“Our members acted within the confinement of the law, and therefore, POPCRU supports (the inquiry),” he said.

“Police officers are used to external investigation, and it wouldn’t be a new issue.” But the union would support whistleblowers, as it had always done, he said.

This reporter visited Stilfontein numerous times from January to April 2025, interviewing miners, civil society organisations and police officers.

An officer who is facing serious legal challenges spoke to GroundUp anonymously, out of fear of reprisal.

He claimed that if Operation Vala Umgodi hadn’t blocked the community from lowering food into the mines, lives could have been saved.

“People died because those officers chose power over humanity.”

He said members of the Vala Umgodi task force removed ropes used by community members to deliver supplies to trapped miners, cutting off their lifeline.

“They didn’t just target illegal miners — they robbed them, beat them, took their IDs and passports, even when valid. And they did it with soldiers by their side,” he claimed.

Tensions ran high between local police, like this officer, and officers deployed from other provinces. The officer claimed locals were often excluded from Vala Umgodi due to suspicion of corruption.

“There are corrupt officers, yes. Some used police vans to deliver food to the miners. But not all of us were corrupt,” he said. “We were willing to help, but we were shut out.”

Dire confirmed that POPCRU had received “a number of complaints” about strife between police, many of which were “addressed expeditiously”.

“The unfortunate part has always been that the result of operations creates overwhelming situations at the police stations. That’s why maximum capacity is needed,” he said. “Still, we are open to external investigations.”

He added that local officers wished to be part of Operation Vala Umgodi, but that was “impossible due to the magnitude of the operation”.

SAPS police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe responded: “No local police officer was excluded. The reason we utilise dedicated teams is to ensure we don’t remove resources from local police stations so that day-to-day policing continues with required capacity.”

A pillar of the inquiry is likely to be testimony from critics of the operation who have stated that miners who died were trapped inside the mine because they were too weak and too far away from the exit shafts.

During the standoff at Stilfontein, the government defended the operation as essential to fight crime. Vala Umgodi involves multiple departments and has been rolled out in numerous provinces, with operations ongoing.

Police said that exit points were established for resurfacing.

And in a statement in December, Natjoints said that miners had the “capability to exit the underground tunnels independently … Their delayed emergence appears to be a tactic to evade arrest by law enforcement agencies.”

After the mass retrieval of bodies in January, Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said the miners had gone underground on their own volition.

“If you go to a dangerous place, such as a neglected mine, and stay there for about three months, starving yourself to death, how does that become the responsibility of the state?” he told the media, adding that the mine owners — the Chinese-owned Buffelsfontein Gold Company — should be held accountable.

In a March parliamentary reply, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said that in Stilfontein, 1,916 miners had been arrested and charged with illegal mining, illegal immigration, possession of gold-bearing material and unlawful possession of explosives. The total cost of the operation, he said, had been more than R36.7-million.

Now, in June, the North West health department has begun mass burials of unclaimed bodies.

Besides investigating the conduct of Vala Umgodi officers, the HRC will also examine the impact of illegal mining on human rights in communities, and gaps in the policy framework on artisanal mining.

Civil society grouping MACUA (Mining Affected Communities United in Action) which raised the alarm last year over the plight of the miners underground, plans to testify. In a damning written submission to the HRC, MACUA refers to the “Stilfontein massacre”, claiming that “state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings” had been carried out under the pretext of combatting illegal mining.

MACUA says the HRC did not respond fast enough.

For those who lived through the operation — on the ground or underground — accountability is long overdue.

“I’m very hurt by what the government and police did to us,” Ntsokolo said. “We’re still waiting for someone to care.”

“I said we must help those who are weak to get out first”
Ayanda Ndabini, 36, spent nearly a month trapped underground in Shaft 11. He went down on 20 September with food, paraffin, and a rough plan. But by November, everything had collapsed — supplies, the communication systems, sense of time, and, almost, the will to live.

“Food finished and we started trying to look for a way to other shafts, like Margaret Shaft, trying to check if we can find a way to get out from there,” he said. “But we failed … we didn’t find any way leading there. We then came back and sat down,” he said during an interview in mid-February.

What followed was a slow unravelling of human dignity in the underground dark. “Some people then started eating cockroaches. They would hide when eating them, but you’d see them gathering cockroaches and putting them in bottles. Then they’d make a fire and fry them.”

With paraffin gone, fires were lit with rotting timber left behind by mine engineers.

Communication with the surface, once maintained by handwritten notes passed through a bucket-and-rope system, disintegrated in early November. “We started panicking when we noticed that instead of the rope coming in there [were] stones being thrown in — and then we immediately knew that there might be police outside.”

Then there was a shift after community leaders pleaded with police, and the miners got word that help had arrived and they would begin to be pulled out. They pleaded for food, and they were given supplies of porridge and Mageu.

On 12 November, a letter came, asking Ndabini to exit. “I said we must rather help those who are weak and can die anytime to get out first. We already had one dead body. I was hungry too, but I chose those who were weak to go first.”

The group began prioritising the most vulnerable. Then on the morning of 15 November, Ndabini surfaced. “I told them I’d report everything to the community as soon as I got out and ask for more food to be lowered. People underground were perishing — many couldn’t even stand. Even those we brought up were immediately taken to hospital.”

He claimed that food supplies were suspended again on 16 November, and resumed on 22 November.

Written by Nomazulu Moyo for GroundUp and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.

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According to Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe, the province is home to 1041 “derelict and ownerless (D&O)” mines.

Nompumelelo Mhlongo, National Assembly (NA) Member of Parliament (MP) for the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), asked specifically about the number of abandoned and/or closed mines in the Rustenburg area, and which land rehabilitation programmes were underway to ensure community safety. However, Mhlongo was informed that government statistics do not make provision for towns and cities, and are based on provincial rankings.

In order to prevent illegal mining and ensure environmental management and community safety, Mhlongo was informed rehabilitation of D&O mines is underway. Mantashe noted that the programme was embarked on to seal unsafe mine shafts throughout the country. However,  Mantashe’s reply gives no numbers regarding the rehabilitation or shaft sealing, but noted there is a priority ranking in place “especially in close proximity to human settlements”.

Mantashe’s response noted the department is committed to annually rehabilitating three asbestos mines and closing 40 unsafe mine shafts/openings. However, “the number of mines to be rehabilitated is determined by the funding from the National Treasury, which is currently not adequate,” noted Mantashe.

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Watching from a distance with other journalists at the scene, forensic workers dressed in full personal protective equipment were seen loading at least five body bags into a nearby truck on Tuesday.

Activists claimed [166] miners have been rescued [since Monday 12 January 2024] and [78] bodies have been recovered.

The rescue is being conducted by the company, Mines Rescue Services, using a cage attached to a huge crane to reach deep into the mineshaft. Police cordoned off the area, preventing media and community members from accessing the scene.

The rescue operation commenced on Monday after an urgent court application was brought by Zinzi Tom, a community member whose brother, Ayanda Tom, is among the hundreds of miners who have been underground since July.

The High Court on Friday ordered the state to finalise and send a service-level agreement and a letter of appointment to Mines Rescue Services for the rescue to begin.

“I have mixed feelings about how this whole thing was handled. Why couldn’t they have started the rescue operation earlier? Maybe some lives could have been saved,” said Tom, who is yet to hear any word about her brother’s condition.

“One of the miners who was rescued [on Monday] said that he saw my brother two weeks ago but had not seen him since. As a family we are just praying that he is brought to the surface alive,” she said.

Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu and Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe also visited the site on Tuesday.

On the road to the mineshaft, community members and civil society organisations staged a picket, calling for accountability for what they say has been the State’s inaction and tardiness regarding the rescue operation.

During the ministers’ press conference, the media were briefly allowed closer to the site. Emaciated miners were being helped into a nearby ambulance. One miner was carried on a stretcher as he was unable to walk.

The two ministers’ motorcade was blocked by protesters, demanding the officials address them.

Addressing the crowd, president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa Mametlwe Sebei blamed the government and the ministers for the loss of life at the mine. Shielded by police, both ministers then left in their cars.

“These ministers think that they are above the law. They can’t even address people who have lost loved ones underground. We are not going to leave this situation as is; we are going to continue to demand accountability as people have been starved to death down there,” said Zethu Hlatshwayo from the Association of Artisanal Miners.

This article was reposted with permission from GroundUp, with an update from ProtectionWeb, the original photo essay can be found here.

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Led by the Provincial Commissioners of each province, Operation Shanela continues to yield significant results in addressing crime across South Africa. In just the past week, a total of 1 743 wanted suspects were arrested, with charges ranging from murder and attempted murder to rape and robbery. Among these, 142 individuals were arrested for murder, with the highest number of arrests recorded in the Eastern Cape. 81 suspects were arrested for attempted murder, and 241 individuals were arrested for rape, with KwaZulu-Natal making up nearly of these arrests, with 119 suspects apprehended. Additionally, 1 646 people were arrested for assault GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm), and 473 individuals were arrested for drug dealing. A further 1 337 people were apprehended for being in possession of illegal drugs, with a significant number of these arrests taking place in the Western Cape. Moreover, 126 suspects were arrested for illegal possession of firearms, with KwaZulu-Natal again leading in this category. The operations also resulted in the arrest of 1 166 illegal foreign nationals and 873 drivers arrested for driving under the influence.

SAPS also reported impressive successes in firearm and vehicle recoveries. During the past week, 125 firearms were confiscated, alongside 752 rounds of ammunition, and 51 stolen vehicles were recovered.

In terms of major takedowns, a police operation in Mpumalanga led to the arrest of two suspects involved in a double murder in Ermelo. A specialized team re-arrested Lovemore Musoyi, a dangerous fugitive wanted for multiple serious crimes across various provinces. In Gauteng, a joint operation resulted in the seizure of counterfeit goods worth R627,290 in Midrand, while the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit made a significant arrest of a man found in possession of an AK47 assault rifle and ammunition. In North West, five suspects were arrested in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Lesego Klaas Makaku in Hartebeespoortdam. Meanwhile, 54 illegal miners were arrested in Mpumalanga, with ongoing operations being conducted in Stilfontein.

Other notable incidents included a shootout in Barberton, Mpumalanga, where suspects involved in a house robbery were confronted by the police, resulting in the death of one suspect and the arrest of another. The suspects had earlier held a family, including a nine-month-old baby, hostage before robbing them and fleeing in the family’s vehicle.

SAPS is committed to continuing its operations and asserting the authority of the state in ensuring the safety and security of all South Africans and visitors to the country. With high-density operations like Operation Shanela and task forces such as Operation Vala Umgodi, SAPS remains focused on tackling crime head-on, from violent crimes to illegal mining, and upholding public safety throughout the nation.

The post Over 13 000 suspects arrested in first Op Shanela of 2025 appeared first on ProtectionWeb.

National Commissioner of Police, General Fannie Masemola, visited the scene and noted the operation highlights the grave risks associated with illegal mining, not only to the miners but also to neighbouring communities. Authorities have identified a growing pattern of human trafficking, with many miners claiming they were brought to the site under false pretences of job opportunities and were then held hostage and forced to mine gold illegally. Some of the heavily armed bosses controlling these operations are reportedly keeping the miners underground against their will.

In recent months, police have made significant strides in arresting key figures behind illegal mining operations, Masemola said. In November, two kingpins, Joacham Chivayo, a Zimbabwean national, and Ayanda Gungwa, a South African national, were arrested by the Hawks with R15 million worth of unwrought gold. They have since been charged with contravening the Precious Metals Act. Another kingpin, Loren Louw, was charged with 1,176 counts of money laundering and violating the Precious Metals Act, amounting to R2.6 billion. In September, Gary and Justin Mitchell were arrested for the theft of R20 million worth of illegally mined chrome.

Furthermore, six kingpins from Khutsong and Carletonville are facing legal action after the Hawks and NPA secured preservation orders for 51 vehicles and seven properties linked to illegal mining. These cases represent a fraction of the ongoing efforts to dismantle the illicit mining networks in South Africa, Masemola said.

Operation Vala Umgodi, initiated in December 2023, remains a ‘critical tool’ in combating illegal mining activities. The SAPS said while progress has been made, the situation demands more resources and continued support to ensure the safety of all involved and to hold the criminals responsible accountable.

Since December 2023, more than 15 000 people have been arrested in connection with illegal mining, and 427 high calibre firearms and more than 10 000 rounds of ammunition have been seized from illegal mining operations.

In Stilfontein, six bodies have been recovered in the past 24 hours, with 26 illegal miners resurfacing over the last two days. More than 1,300 miners have been rescued in recent weeks, and operations continue as the police work to prevent further tragedies.

General Masemola stated that the SAPS is committed to addressing the dangers of illegal mining, which he noted is often tied to other crimes such as human trafficking, money laundering, and armed violence. The Commissioner said law enforcement will continue to hold criminal networks accountable and urged all South Africans to join in this fight by reporting illegal activities and supporting the police’s efforts. “Together we can and we will put a stop to these illicit activities if we are all committed to the fight,” said Masemola.

The post Police making headway in fight against illicit mining – Masemola appeared first on ProtectionWeb.

The miners were all Mozambican. Their clothes were torn and muddy. Some of them had bare feet. They had been climbing for several days up the giant steel girders that held a transport elevator in place when the mine was still operational.

The shaft is deeper than 1.5 km and no longer ventilated, emitting hot vapor that billows upwards like steam. The men were soaking wet and had cuts on their hands.

A reporter for Newzroom Afrika interviewed some of the men before they were taken into custody. They said that they had been hired as casual labourers, unaware this would lead them into some of the world’s deepest and most dangerous mines.

One man had been at a roadside area in Middelburg where unemployed people wait for gardening or construction jobs, he said, when some men pulled up in a white minibus and offered him work in Johannesburg. He hurriedly went home and said goodbye to his wife, with whom he has four children. This was his last contact with his family for three months.

Other men were similarly recruited in the townships of Diepsloot and Alexandra. The recruiters were said to be Basotho men.

Instead of stopping in Joburg, the minibus headed out of the city. “We started asking questions but they threatened us with guns,” the man from Middelburg said. They arrived in Stilfontein and were ordered to go underground.

In the past few years, Stilfontein has become an epicenter of South Africa’s illicit gold industry. The town lies just outside Klerksdorp on the N12 highway, dwarfed by hills of dumped rock and tailings from industrial mines that began operating in the 1950s.

Most of these mines have since been closed down due to declining profitability, though vast quantities of gold remain in the ground. Over the past decade, these abandoned shafts have been taken over by powerful gangs.

A mine security expert from the neighbouring town of Orkney, another zama zama hotspot, told GroundUp that a single shaft could have 500 men working inside, each mining 30 grams of gold per week. He stressed that these were conservative estimates. A gram of gold currently sells for about R1,000 on the black market, meaning that each shaft could generate upwards of R60-million monthly.

There are more than a dozen abandoned shafts surrounding Stilfontein, representing staggering returns for the syndicates controlling the trade. These groups also profit by selling food and other supplies — gumboots, batteries, shovels — to men underground at hugely inflated prices.

Analysts have estimated that illegal mining accounts for around a tenth of South Africa’s annual gold production, although some mining executives privately believe the true figure is even higher. Based on last year’s production statistics, this amounts to ten metric tons of gold, worth more than R15-billion at current gold prices.

This illicit economy endures for a variety of reasons. There are hundreds of disused shafts left behind by the mining industry. Government regulations around mine closures have been weakly enforced. Poverty and unemployment are high in former mining towns. Money from illegal gold mining has corrupted many agencies tasked with combating the issue.

Besides obtaining gold from abandoned shafts, syndicates smuggle zama zamas into operational mines, bribing employees to facilitate their entry.

The illicit gold trade is loosely organised into a pyramid structure. At the top are white-collar criminals who launder gold from zama zamas into the legal gold market, with a hierarchy of buyers and middlemen beneath them. The miners are at the bottom.

Over the past two decades, heavily armed gangs from Lesotho have muscled in on the shafts, operating as extortion rackets. In Stilfontein, working in abandoned mines became impossible without paying them steep fees.

One zama zama told GroundUp that it cost around R10,000 to enter and R25,000 to return. Local gold buyers would often front these expenses in return for a cut of the gold the miners produced. Many zama zamas became trapped in debt while underground, a cycle worsened by the high cost of food, which they paid for in gold. Some men could remain in the mines for months or years and come away with “nothing”, the zama zama said.

His own work for the syndicate involved roping men in and out of the shafts as a “cage operator”, the same term used on functioning mines for controlling the transport elevator. Sometimes he was sent underground to transport provisions to distant tunnels where zama zamas were living, trekking for hours in the darkness. This earned him a salary of R8,000 per month.

He grew up in Stilfontein’s township of Khuma, which was built for black mine labourers during apartheid and named after a Setswana word for “wealth”. His father had been a migrant labourer on the mines but returned to Mozambique after being retrenched in the early 2000s. His mother was unemployed, and to support his siblings he left school before matriculating. Now in his thirties, he has been a zama zama his entire adult life.

Initially he had dug for gold at the surface, but later he began working for a Basotho gang. He described seeing young men at the shafts who had been brought there unwillingly. Most were from Mozambique and Zimbabwe. “They say they don’t want to go underground,” he said. “We see them crying.”

He estimated that a third of the zama zamas he encountered were coerced into entering the mines. “You will take him down there by force. He will be beaten,” he explained.

One night last year, he started lowering a Zimbabwean teenager who was shaking with fear and unable to speak. The rope felt unusually light after a few hundred meters, so he asked some men to help pull it back up. The teenager had been trying to slow his descent by gripping the shaft’s metal frame with his thighs, slackening the tension on the rope. When they hauled him out, his testicles had been torn loose and were hanging from a flap of skin.

Over the past few months, a joint police and military operation in Stilfontein has attempted to force zama zamas out from underground by blocking their supply of food. To date, more than 1,300 miners have been arrested. More than 1,200 were from Mozambique and Zimbabwe. About 100 were undocumented children from neighbouring countries.

Most of these miners have come up via the elevator of a nearby functioning mine shaft. Some have said that they were held captive by gang members. A mine security official involved in the operation told GroundUp that Basotho men with assault rifles were guarding the tunnels that connect the shaft to abandoned mines and only allowing zama zamas to exit if they handed over their gold.

“Whenever they come out, they are paying,” the official said. He added that the gang was withholding food from miners who remained underground. Some have been surviving by eating toilet paper and toothpaste.

A few weeks ago, five young men climbed out from an abandoned shaft near Khuma, surprising a police guard stationed there. They reported travelling for three weeks through the tunnels after escaping the gang and then climbing vertically for more than a kilometre. An official who saw them described their bodies as “crushed”. He added: “We don’t know how they did it.”

The mine’s concrete headframe, a looming tower some 50 meters high, has not yet been torn down. Inside is the mouth of the shaft, a black hole in the earth surrounded by twisted metal and frayed ropes dangling over the edge.

The men said that they had been offered jobs and brought to Stilfontein without knowing what lay in wait for them.

The Mozambicans who came out on 24 November used a different shaft to exit. Its surface infrastructure was demolished in 2018 and the entrance sealed over, but zama zamas blew it open the following year. Prior to the clampdown, hitmen guarded the site from on top of an adjacent rock dump.

The mine is situated near another abandoned shaft where an informal operation to rescue zama zamas from underground began earlier in November. Mine rescue experts have since taken over, using specialised equipment.

The police have used the escape of the 14 men to argue that the zama zamas are not trapped and “simply refuse to resurface because they are avoiding arrest”, as a press release stated.

Hundreds of men are still believed to be underground. “They are caught between the police and the gangs,” a community leader in Stilfontein said. “It’s a double victimisation.”

Written by Kimon de Greef for GroundUp and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.

The post The violent underworld of Stilfontein’s zama zamas appeared first on ProtectionWeb.

Such improvised weapons – in the form of fuse-lit bombs and hand-grenades made from explosives shaved off legal mining supplies by formal miners and sold to zama zamas – would be devastating if used in cramped and hot tunnel mazes against law enforcement.

Combined with assault rifles and other military equipment of which the zama zamas seem to have a substantial supply, this makes occupied mines impregnable underground fortresses unless Police vastly upgrade their equipment.

According to police statements, up to 4 000 illegal miners were said to be hiding underground after police cut supply lines, although this figure has been questioned by a wide range of commentators and subsequently revised down to hundreds.

Up until now, police have also refused to disclose the name of the commander of the Stilfontein operation.

ProtectionWeb can now exclusively publish for the first time photographs of Zama Zama Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) taken during an underground SAPS operation as far back as 2006 in the Masimong Mine in Welkom in South Africa’s Free State.

The photographs reveal the extremely cramped conditions underground – and how the measures taken by mining companies to cut off disused mining shafts are largely ineffective and easily side-stepped by zama zamas.

The ongoing Stilfontein crisis has also exposed severe flaws in legislation and SA Police Service operational intelligence, technology and communication capacity – and weak operational resilience and morale.

Unless found in possession of gold-bearing material (GBM), individual illegal miners cannot be prosecuted for anything more than trespassing, a major legislative gap which is in the process of being rectified, says Willem Els, an intelligence expert at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

Experts say the rigid manner in which the SAPS and the Presidency approached and handled the Stilfontein zama zama issue from the outset illustrates how the illegal mining phenomenon morphed into virtual asymmetrical warfare and one of the apogees of organised crime.

As published by ProtectionWeb, the photographs show the SAPS as far back as 2006 had the capacity to conduct underground operations against zama zamas and had even then gathered extensive intelligence on their capabilities and organisational structures and conditions underground.

The refusal by police to initiate even a hostage negotiation scenario – with many illegal miners probably being held hostage by zama zama enforcers – at Stilfontein and use available technology to quickly resolve the crisis has also come under fire from a wide range of experts.

Instead, South Africa’s commitment to the rule of law and human rights was severely tarnished by the SAPS and Presidency, even seemingly forcing President Cyril Ramaphosa to admonish Police and Minister-in-the-Presidency Khambudzo Ntshavenhi on their inflexible and conflict-inducing stance.

This stance allowed zama zamas to not only escape with their gold but to also conceivably organise an almost impregnable defence had they so desired – but as it turned out, they seemingly opted for a rear-guard security action to remove their product.

Conversely, the crisis has highlighted the power and reach of organised zama zamas, who have evolved as the South African operational arm of a R47 billion per annum international dirty gold trade which rivals the illegal oil trade run by terrorist organisations.

Experts consulted by ProtectionWeb said technology was available to assist in a peaceful negotiated resolution to the Stilfontein siege, including:

Teleoperated Robots: Remote controlled to navigate tight and hazardous environments and equipped with high-definition cameras, thermal imaging and sensors to provide real-time feedback.

Bomb-disposal robots: These can be re-purposed for dangerous tasks such as reconnaissance and hostage rescue.

Surveillance robots: Used for intelligence-gathering, they can provide a 360-degree view of the situation without risking lives.

Photos by Willem Els.

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In a statement on Wednesday 27 November, the Department of Social Development said the North West provincial department had received information about the arrest of undocumented minors.

Most of the illicit miners, including the undocumented children, are suspected to originate from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, namely Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.

The Department of Social Development is, in terms of the Constitution of South Africa, the Children’s Act, Child Justice Act and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), mandated to protect the rights of children.

“Based on the outcomes of the court proceedings, the department will seek to place all identified and legally declared undocumented children in accommodation and provide for their basic needs, while they are still waiting to be processed in terms of the Child Justice Act.

“The court will, in terms of the provisions of the Child Justice Act formally charge the children whilst they are placed in the safety of the facilities of the department,” the department said.

The department said it had identified cultural mediation to assist in translation as language has been identified as a barrier.

Furthermore, the department has engaged the Zimbabwean and Mozambique embassies for the issuance of repatriation certificates/traveling documents.

Health services have been provided to the children to ensure that they are healthy and that their rights were not violated.

“During this period of processing, the department will as part of its child protection services conduct a comprehensive assessment to ascertain if they are indeed children who are in need of care and protection.

“The department will continue to provide the necessary support until the repatriation process is concluded,” the department said.

The post Undocumented children detained for illicit mining in Stilfontein appeared first on ProtectionWeb.

“You mix a soft porridge with water,” one of the miners said, miming his belly becoming full. “It hurts to swallow. Your hunger stops for a while.”

He spoke to GroundUp in Stilfontein, the former mining town in North-West province where zama zamas were recently cut off from food for approximately two months as part of a national clampdown on illegal mining dubbed “Vala Umgodi” or “Close the Hole”. 

Beginning in late September, police and the military shut down access points used by gold syndicates for delivering supplies underground in an attempt to force the miners to surface. “We are going to smoke them out,” South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency warned.

Earlier this month, the police estimated that as many as 4,500 zama zamas remained underground. They subsequently revised this figure to a few hundred. Nobody knows for sure how many people are still inside the tunnels, which form an interconnected labyrinth of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of kilometres surrounding some of the deepest mine shafts in the world. In the past two weeks, nearly 1,200 zama zamas have surfaced and been arrested in Stilfontein.

The majority of these miners travelled up and out of the mines via a transport elevator at Margaret Shaft, one of the few operational shafts in the town. The mine, founded in 1949, has not produced any gold in 30 years but now functions as a pump station for groundwater that inundates surviving mines in the area.

It connects via a maze of tunnels to distant abandoned shafts where zama zamas dig for gold, forming part of a highly organised illicit economy that has spread across South Africa’s gold reefs over the past two decades.

A few weeks ago, a warning message typed by the authorities and translated into Sesotho, Xhosa and Tsonga circulated among illegal miners in Stilfontein, urging people underground to “exit at the Margaret Shaft as it is the safest existing exit”.

Footage shared by the police showed hundreds of young men in tattered clothing being hauled out, dripping wet, from areas deep inside the pump shaft. Most of them were from Zimbabwe and Mozambique and will likely be deported.

To get out, some had walked for days from other parts of the tunnel network. There is no official map of this sprawling subterranean system, which was created over decades by different mining companies that bought and sold the mines from each other as the gold reserves were worked out. Even security officials in the area — tasked with guarding the few operational mines, where zama zamas sneak in via abandoned tunnels or bribe mineworkers to smuggle them inside — do not fully understand how the shafts link together.

Many of the men were severely dehydrated and weak with hunger by the time they arrived at the elevator. There have been reports of multiple dead bodies underground, although there is no way of confirming how many.

One zama zama told GroundUp that about a hundred people had died, citing a WhatsApp group used by illegal miners, but this was not possible to verify. (He said that one of the abandoned shafts had been fitted with internet cables, allowing zama zamas to communicate with the surface. This has also been reported in other areas where illegal mining has proliferated.)

Dozens of zama zamas are reported to have died in similar clampdowns in South Africa after supplies were cut off. In 2021, more than 500 zama zamas exited the tunnels in the neighbouring town of Orkney, another illegal mining hotspot, after their food ran out. A few days later, hundreds of the men attempted to force their way back inside, culminating in a shoot-out with officials that left six dead.

Police and mine security experts contend that this approach is necessary for catching large numbers of illegal miners, who can remain underground for months or even years.

Conditions in the abandoned mines are perilous. It is dark, many areas have caved in or flooded, rockfalls are common and temperatures exceed 40 degrees celsius. The humidity is suffocating and there are poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide and methane. Some shafts plunge vertically for more than two kilometres, opening at different levels onto the unmaintained tunnels.

There are also heavily armed gangs underground, controlled by powerful syndicates, who defend their underground turf with assault rifles and shotguns. Some areas are rigged with explosives that can be remotely detonated if rivals or the authorities enter.

Instead of pursuing the miners, the goal of the Vala Umgodi operation was to starve them out.

As the clampdown continued, another group of zama zamas became trapped in an abandoned mine ten kilometres south of Margaret Shaft. Formerly known as Buffelsfontein, it was closed down in 2013 and demolished the following year. Buildings were bulldozed, the towering mine headframes dismantled and the shafts capped with concrete.

The mine still contained an estimated 11.8-million ounces of gold, worth a stupefying $30-billion at current prices, but had been incurring steep losses. Deep-level industrial mining is enormously expensive and much of this gold was inaccessible without considerable further investment. Nevertheless, vast quantities of ore remained in the tunnels for people willing — or sometimes coerced — to venture inside and dig for it.

The rise of illegal mining took place amid an unemployment crisis. By 2014, only six of 28 developed shafts in the area, including neighbouring Klerksdorp and Orkney, remained in operation. According to a study that year by the South African Cities Network, three-quarters of the workforce had been retrenched within five years, and the number of people living in poverty had doubled.

A large population of mine labourers, many of them migrants from neighbouring countries, remained in Khuma and Kanana, townships designated for black workers during apartheid. They knew which parts of the old mines were rich in gold. A few years after the Buffelsfontein shafts were sealed off, zama zamas blasted them open and began descending via ropes.

As no companies were actively mining nearby, the area was largely given over to this illicit activity. “We don’t really care,” a mine security official said two years ago. He estimated that two thousand people were living underground.

In late September, with their supplies running low due to the police operation, zama zamas began gathering deep inside one of the Buffelsfontein shafts: an open hole in the ground with sheer concrete sides that plunge vertically for more than two kilometres.

Some of them attempted to walk to Margaret Shaft but turned back after two days, blocked by a section flooded with water. They tried another route and turned back again. They waited in the darkness, subsisting on toothpaste. To hydrate, they drank contaminated groundwater, which made many of them ill.

A large number of the men had chronic diseases — diabetes, chest conditions, HIV — and ordinarily would have been able to purchase medication at heavily inflated prices from the syndicate that controlled the shaft.

Provisioning zama zamas could be equally lucrative as dealing illegally in gold. A litre of bottled water could be sold underground for R100. A six pack of beer cost R1,500. It was possible to purchase gumboots, torch batteries, cigarettes and a cough syrup containing codeine that many of the men became addicted to. These supplies were delivered in bulk down the shafts, with runners paid to carry them to far-away tunnels.

Above ground at Buffelsfontein, community leaders remonstrated with police to allow food into the shaft. With no elevator to ride up, the trapped zama zamas would need to be lifted out another way.

Rescue experts contracted by the mining industry visited the site to assess it. They have specialised winding machines for lowering into deep-level shafts, but the ground surrounding the hole in Buffelsfontein was unstable, strewn with heaps of rubble. It was also unclear who would pay for a rescue operation, which can cost millions of rand.

As these deliberations were ongoing, the police allowed a volunteer rescue operation to begin two weeks ago. A large pulley was suspended over the entrance to the shaft, fastened to several ropes anchored among the rubble. A man was lowered down by hand to communicate with the zama zamas, and the police allowed a delivery of instant porridge packets.

There wasn’t enough food for everybody and fights broke out, according to men who were subsequently rescued. One man was struck over the head with a rock and had his shoulder dislocated.

Later, a team of men from the community lowered a harness and bright yellow rainsuit into the darkness. (Without ventilation, the combination of heat and water in abandoned mines produces thick steam that rises up the shafts.)

When one of the zama zamas had been fastened to the end of the rope, they methodically began hauling him up, bending their backs in the heat. It took 45 minutes to pull each man nearly two kilometres to the surface.

By 14 November they had recovered six people, as well as a dead body. Hundreds of men remained underground.

This piece was republished with permission from Groundup. The original article can be found here.

The post Stilfontein’s dangerous and desperate illegal mining industry appeared first on ProtectionWeb.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu revealed 1187 miners had resurfaced since their supply routes were cut last month, with authorities working to ensure the remaining miners following suit. SAPS has committed to staying in the area until all illegal miners have surfaced and been apprehended.

“We continue to appeal to the illegal miners to come out of the mines. It is in their best interest to do so, as they may require medical attention,” a police spokesperson said. “We ask the community to allow the police to carry out their duties. Criminal activity will not be tolerated.”

As of the latest reports, only three additional miners have surfaced. The SAPS stressed that the operation will continue relentlessly. “We will not hesitate to enforce the authority of the state,” the police added.

Government officials have praised the police for their ongoing efforts to combat illegal mining. This week, Cabinet commended the SAPS for tackling the issue in North West.

On Friday 15 November, Minister Mchunu visited the Stilfontein mine shaft and held discussions with members of the South African Defence Force regarding the ongoing situation at the site.

In a follow-up address to the local community, Minister Mchunu confirmed that authorities were aware of the illegal firearms held by the miners.

“These individuals are entering South Africa unlawfully. Our priority, as the police, is to ensure law and order across the country,” Mchunu stated.

He also assured the community that police operations were being intensified to remove illegal miners from the area. “We know that some community members are aware of the activities taking place at the mine. We urge them to distance themselves from these illegal actions. Engaging in illegal mining is a crime,” the Minister emphasised.

Rescue Efforts by Local Community

In a remarkable show of community solidarity, around 50 residents of Stilfontein volunteered to help rescue miners trapped underground. By Wednesday afternoon, five miners had been successfully pulled to the surface, although they were weak from lack of food and water. Residents used ropes to extract them, and it is estimated that around 4 500 miners remain underground, although the government has suggested there may only be several hundred.

The miners have been trapped for months, some for as long as six months. The rescue operation was dangerous, with some miners too weak to climb out on their own. Volunteers signed indemnity forms and descended into the shafts to assist. The rescued miners received immediate medical attention.

Residents have called for further government support for the miners, especially those too weak to emerge without help.

Government’s Response

Officials have firmly rejected calls to assist the miners, with some officials reminding the public of the miners’ illegal actions. Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, stated that the government has no obligation to help individuals engaged in illegal activity.

“I’m not going to send help to criminals. They went into the mines to break the law, not for the benefit of the country,” Ntshavheni stated. “If anyone wants to help them, they can take food down, but we’re not going to risk lives sending law enforcement or military personnel underground.”

Ntshavheni further emphasised that government’s priority is to eliminate illegal mining and prosecute offenders. “We’re focused on shutting down illegal mining operations and holding families accountable for allowing their loved ones to engage in these activities,” she added.

Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone confirmed that two more miners had resurfaced after provisions of food and water were sent down. Mokgwabone further reported that some miners had asked for help to climb out, as they were too weak to do so on their own. There are additional reports of bodies being found underground, highlighting the dangers facing the illegal miners.

Ongoing Efforts to End Illegal Mining

SAPS and SANDF remain committed to continuing the operation until all illegal miners have resurfaced and been apprehended. Authorities are determined to dismantle the illegal mining syndicates that pose significant risks to both the miners and the environment.

While local communities continue to play a vital role in the rescue efforts, law enforcement agencies stress that the operation is part of a broader strategy to combat illegal mining and its associated criminal activities.

The SAPS has warned that illegal mining is a serious crime and will continue to pursue all measures necessary to bring those responsible to justice.

Urgent Court Order

The Pretoria High Court issued an order preventing the police from sealing off the unused mine and further ruled that these miners must be allowed to exit the mine.

The Society for the Protection of Our Constitution filed an urgent application with the High Court, which was heard by Judge Brenda Neukircher on Saturday.

“Pending the finalisation of this application, the Stilfontein mine shaft, which is the subject of this case, shall remain unblocked and may not be sealed by any person or institution, whether public or private. Any miners trapped in the mine shaft must be allowed to exit. However, no non-emergency personnel may enter the mine shaft,” Judge Neukircher ruled.

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