South Africa gold mine tragedy: 36 bodies recovered, 86 survivors arrested for illegal mining – Firstpost

South African rescuers have recovered 36 dead bodies and rescued 82 survivors from a gold mine deep underground in two days of operations, news agency Reuters reported. The South African authorities said that the survivors would all face illegal mining and immigration charges.
The police said that the operation will continue for several days, as it involves the use of a metal cage to recover men and bodies from a mine shaft more than 2 km underground.
Food and water supply was cut off for months by police as part of the plan to lay siege to the mine. This was done to force the miners to the surface so they could be arrested as part of a crackdown on illegal mining.
The miners’ rights group released footage showing corpses and skeletal survivors in the mine. The group said that hundreds more men and dozens more bodies are still trapped underground.
Illegal mining generally takes place in mines abandoned by large companies because they are not commercially viable. These unlicensed miners, who engage in illegal mining, are often immigrants from other African countries.
The South African government said that the siege of the Stilfontein mine was necessary to fight illegal mining. Mining Minister Gwede Mantashe described it as “a war on the economy”. He estimated that the illicit precious metals trade was worth 60 billion rand ($3.17 billion) last year.
A Reuters team at the site, about 150 km (90 miles) from Johannesburg in the town of Stilfontein, saw rescuers carrying one man on a stretcher on Tuesday. A group of other men, one of them emaciated, sat on the ground surrounded by uniformed police officers and paramedics.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said in November: “We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out.”
But a court said in December that volunteers should be allowed to send down supplies to the trapped men, and another ruling last week ordered the state to launch a rescue operation, which began on Monday.
“All 82 that have been arrested are facing illegal mining, trespassing and contravention of the Immigration Act charges,” police said in a statement, referring to all those pulled out alive on Monday and Tuesday.
The statement added that two of them would face additional charges of being in possession of gold.
The government crackdown, part of an operation called “Vala Umgodi” or “Close the hole” in the isiZulu language, has drawn criticism from human rights organisations and local residents.
A 26-year-old woman living near Stilfontein, who gave her name as Matumelo, said her husband had gone down the mine in June when she was pregnant. She last received a letter from him in August and has since given birth.
“My husband, is he alive or dead?” she said, declining to give her family name for fear of retribution from the authorities.
There was a small protest by local residents and rights groups outside the venue where police and mining officials addressed the media on Tuesday. “STOP THE SACRIFICE. #FREETHEMINERS,” read one placard.
With inputs from Reuters
is on YouTube
Copyright @ 2024. Firstpost – All Rights Reserved

source

About The Author

admin

See author's posts