Why Hundreds of miners are still trapped and feared starving in abandoned South African mine

Authorities launched an operation in November to force out the men who were mining illegally at the closed Buffelsfontein Gold Mine by cutting off their food and water supplies from the surface for a period of time. Police say the miners can come out but are refusing for fear of being arrested.

But groups representing the miners dispute that and say they are trapped up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) below the surface in one of the country’s deepest mines and a proper rescue operation should have started months ago.

One group says more than 100 have died and 500 others are still trapped, with many ill and starving.

It’s not clear exactly how long the miners have been underground near the town of Stilfontein, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of Johannesburg. But it’s certain they have been there since at least November, when police first tried to force them out. Some members of the local community say their relatives have been in the mine for nearly six months, since July.

Illegal mining is common in parts of gold-rich South Africa where companies close down mines that are no longer profitable, leaving informal miners to illegally enter them to try and find leftover deposits. Large groups often go underground for months to maximize their profits, taking food, water, generators, and other equipment with them, but also relying on others on the surface to send down more supplies.

Police tried to force the miners out last year by cutting off their supplies and dismantling ropes they used to climb down into the mine and a pulley system used for supplies. A Cabinet minister said the aim was to “smoke them out” and the government would not send help because they were “criminals.”

That tactic is now being fiercely criticized by rights groups. Some of them won a court case in December forcing police and provincial authorities to allow food, water, and medicine to be sent down to the miners again. But they say the supplies are not enough for all those who are trapped.

Some miners have emerged in the last two months and have been arrested. Police say that shows they can come out. But a spokesman for the Mining Affected Communities United in Action group, which is representing the miners and their families, said the miners who did escape undertook a treacherous days-long journey underground to a different shaft, and many are too weak to do that.

The police operation at Stilfontein last year was part of a countrywide crackdown on mining gangs known as “zama zamas,” or hustlers in the Zulu language, that have long been a problem in South Africa. The government estimates that there are about 6,000 abandoned mines and that close to $1 billion is lost annually in revenue due to illicit mining.

A community-led rescue effort began bringing survivors and bodies out of the Buffelsfontein mine on Friday, while authorities started the official rescue and recovery effort on Monday using a cage lowered into the mine.

At least 60 bodies have been recovered and more than 90 survivors have been pulled out, police said.

But it could take weeks to rescue survivors and bring all the bodies out as the cage can fit less than 10 people. Authorities have also said no official rescue personnel will go down into the mine because it is extremely dangerous. Volunteers from the community who are familiar with the mine have been in the cage as it is dropped deep underground.