The Mine Rescue Services (MRS) team tasked with retrieving miners trapped in Shaft 11 of the abandoned Buffelsfontein gold mine on the outskirts of Stilfontein, North West, worked well into the evening to pull up emaciated and dead miners.
By 10pm on Tuesday, 14 January, 51 corpses had been removed from the shaft, along with 106 miners who were arrested for illegal mining.
On day one of the operation, Monday, 13 January, nine bodies were brought to the surface and 26 illegal miners rescued.
During a media briefing at the rescue site on Tuesday, MRS CEO Mannas Fourie said that while the operation was moving ahead swiftly, the rescue team faced several challenges when they began their operation on Monday.
“Unfortunately, every rescue site is different. This is a dangerous and high-risk operation. We operate in front and on the verge of an open hole. We go down for approximately 2.6km into the shaft,” Mannes said.
During the briefing, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said authorities had no way of knowing exactly how many illegal miners are trapped underground.
“We will only know how many people remain underground through this current operation. After 10 days, the operation will tell us how many remain underground. We will do our best to take everybody dead or alive out of the shaft,” Mchunu said.
Mannes added that MRS would consider pushing the rescue to a 24-hour operation if necessary, “to rescue as many people as possible”.
Nationality of illegal miners
According to an update on day two issued by the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, the arrested miners comprise:
- 67 Mozambicans;
- 26 Basotho;
- 11 Zimbabweans; and
- Two South Africans.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said that since August, when police closed all entrances to Shaft 11, more than 1,576 illegal miners who exited the mine voluntarily have been arrested before the extraction operation.
They included: 997 Mozambicans, 427 Zimbabweans, 118 Basotho, 21 South Africans, one Malawian and one Congolese.
The current figures align with what Mineral and Petroleum Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe said during the media briefing, claiming that the majority of the miners are undocumented.
“Our communities here say we must give licences to [the illegal miners]… If they say so, we’ll come here and hear them out and have a hearing that please give licences to steal gold to Mozambicans, Zimbabweans and Lesotho nationals. It’s a criminal activity. It’s an attack on our economy by foreign nationals in the main,” he railed.
Lerato Moloi, a resident of Khuma township in Stilfontein, told Daily Maverick on Tuesday that while she understands why the government has continuously stressed that many of the illegal miners are undocumented migrants, she and several other locals view them as part of the community.
“We don’t deny that there are criminals down there, too, but many of the people who decide to mine are doing it because there are no jobs. The people from outside came here with skills, they know how to mine and they are teaching the people from here how to do it. People see them as foreigners, but to me they are part of the community,” Moloi said.
The operation will continue on Wednesday, 15 January, when more bodies and living miners, who will be arrested, are expected to be brought to the surface.
‘Is the father of my child still alive?’
While rescue teams worked to retrieve the trapped illegal miners, anxious relatives watched from the sidelines as miners and corpses were brought out of the abandoned shaft.
“Yesterday, I heard on the news that corpses were brought out of the mine,” Matumelo (not her real name) told Daily Maverick during day two of the rescue operation to retrieve miners trapped in the Buffelsfontein gold mine outside Stilfontein in North West. “Now, the only thing I am asking myself is: Is the father of my child still alive?”
Finding refuge from the sweltering heat under the shade of a tree, Matumelo looked towards the crane that had been set up to rescue the miners, contemplating what had become of her partner. The 26-year-old had not heard from him since August last year when police descended on the mine and closed off access to the abandoned shaft as part of Operation Vala Umgodi.
Rescue teams use a crane and cage system to retrieve miners trapped in the Stilfontein mine. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
“I’m worried about him. He has been in the shaft for months now. I have given birth, and my child is two months old. She doesn’t even know her father,” said the young mother.
Matumelo’s fears summed up the general feeling of the angry and anxious Stilfontein residents who gathered outside the cordoned-off rescue site, anxiously waiting as miners — alive and dead — were brought out of Shaft 11 by rescue workers.
Matumelo fears for the life of the father of her child who has been trapped in the mine for months. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
On Monday, disturbing footage obtained by the miners’ rights group Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) gave South Africans the first glimpses of conditions inside the mine.
The two videos revealed heaps of bodies wrapped in plastic and a shirtless, emaciated miner, the consequences of months without access to fresh supplies. The videos emerged after police blocked the miners’ supply of food, water and medication in a bid to “smoke them out” and arrest them for illegally entering and mining in the abandoned shaft.
Read more: Trapped miners’ desperate letters reveal grim conditions, numerous fatalities and lack of food
As the operation continued, a fleet of pathology vans sped past journalists and residents camped outside the mine. From a distance, workers clad in white hazmat suits could be seen on the back of a red truck. By 4pm on Tuesday, 14 January, 27 corpses had been retrieved from the mine, their identities unknown. Fifty-six other miners had been brought up alive.
Forensic pathologists load body bags on the back of a truck on 14 January. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
Emaciated miners after being rescued on 14 January. (Photo: Kim Ludbrook / EPA-EFE)
On Tuesday afternoon, Mathe confirmed that the 82 surviving miners had been arrested for illegal mining, trespassing and contravention of the Immigration Act.
“Two illegal miners who were found in possession of gold have also been charged with being in the illegal possession of gold-bearing material.”
‘No humanitarian solution’
While Mchunu’s address to the media was measured, Mantashe responded bluntly to the conditions the miners faced underground. Labelling illegal mining “a war on the economy”, he defended the government’s slow response in rescuing the miners, saying there was no humanitarian solution for people who broke the law and willingly put their lives at risk.
Ministers Gwede Mantashe and Senzo Mchunu at a media briefing on 14 January. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
Macua representative Sabelo Mnguni told Daily Maverick that Mantashe’s statement violated the constitutionally mandated right to life.
“Our lives as ordinary people in South Africa don’t mean anything to them; hence he says this. There is a lot of criminality happening in South Africa, but the government’s response to the miners’ situation shows that they do not care,” Mnguni said.
Tensions flare
After addressing the media, Mchunu and Mantashe, accompanied by a large entourage, made their way to the residents of Stilfontein who had gathered outside the demarcated shaft, calling for accountability from the government.
The ministers were meant to have a meeting with the community to hear their concerns and discuss the rescue operation. But the crowd, disinterested in the ministers’ presence, listened instead to Lawyers for Human Rights attorney Mametlwe Sebei as he lambasted the government for its slow response.
Mametlwe Sebei addresses community members at the entrance to the Stilfontein mine on 14 January. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
“We should call it what it is. These ministers are here at the scene of the crime. Hundreds of miners have died underground in what can only be a bloody culmination of their treacherous policies of the police operation, planned and executed with the approval at the highest echelons of the state, including the Cabinet,” said Sebei.
Mchunu lashed out at Sebei, shouting at the attorney to let him speak, which prompted the crowd to turn on the minister with loud shouts of “voetsek”.
The ministers left the scene with the crowd yelling insults as they sped off in their blue-light convoy.
Residents protest at the entrance to the mine on 14 January. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
‘I did it to eat’
Daily Maverick spoke to a miner who escaped the shaft in August, just as the police descended on the illegal mine. After weeks underground, said Moeketsi Kgathi, he surfaced from the mine in search of food, only to be confronted by the police who had arrived to close off the entrance to the mine.
“I had been in darkness in that mine for a long time, so when I surfaced, it took some time for my eyes to adjust to the light. When I saw the police, I was scared that I would be shot. I ran and dove to the ground. I didn’t realise I had fallen on a metal pipe,” said Kgathi, speaking in Setswana.
He lifted his shirt to show a scar on his chest where the pipe had impaled him. Kgathi said that he was spotted by community members who found him bleeding in the bushes and rushed him to hospital.
Moeketsi Kgathi shows a scar he sustained while fleeing the police after resurfacing from the mine in August 2024. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)
When asked why he went down into the mine, Kgathi said, “There are no jobs. Before I started mining, I used to break into houses at Khuma [a local township]. I was a gangster; I was a thief. This mine saved me from that life. We are hungry and the resources are there. The government is not giving us jobs, but they have allowed this mine to stay abandoned while people are suffering.
“What is happening right now is … very painful and hard to understand. It is even worse that it is being done by a government we voted for. I barely escaped that day with my life. Now I am standing here watching them pull up corpses. I have friends who are still trapped in there, and I don’t know if they are dead or alive.” DM