"If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up."

"It is a disgrace for a constitutional democracy like ours."

Johannes Qankase, local community leader, Stilfontein, South Africa

 

"It has been a tough few days, there were many people who [we] saved but I still feel bad for those whose family members came out in body bags." 

"We did all we could."Mandla Charles, volunteer rescuer

Forensic service workers carry dead miners in blue body bags out of the mine   AP

 

South African authorities have come  under fire for their decision to cut off food and supplies to illegal miners operating in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine, a tactic meant to "smoke them out". It is the South African mining union that has condemned the government for its pitiless decision not to come to the aid of the illegal miners who were trapped in an abandoned gold mine. The miners, in a desperate situation, were left to their own devices to try to save themselves.

Finally local community groups took action on their own to launch rescue attempts after government authorities declared they had no intention of assisting the hundreds of miners trapped far  underground under conditions that would lead to their deaths, stating their decision was based on the fact that as far as the government was concerned, the illegal miners were 'criminals' not worthy of being saved from their own folly.

The standoff between the miners and government authorities have been ongoing for months, with no solution on the near horizon. The situation is dire, and has to the present cost the lives of 87 miners trapped in the gold mine. Athlenda Mathe, a spokesperson for the national police, affirmed that 78 bodies had been retrieved, resulting from a court-ordered rescue operation.

 

Forensic Service workers carry bodies in blue body bags taken out of the mine on January 14, 2025   AP

 

Another 246 survivors were pulled out of the mine since Monday when the operation was initiated. Nine additional bodies were recovered prior to the rescue operation forced by court order on the government.

Those of the miners whose lives were lost are thought of as having died of starvation and dehydration, although no causes of death have yet been officially released.

But the fact is that South African authorities cut off food and supplies to the miners last year in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine. Accusations have been levelled against both police and mine owners of having dismantled a pulley system whose function was to enable entry to the mine and to send supplies down to the miners.

Close to 2,000 miners were thought to be working illegally in the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August of last year. Many resurfaced on their own over the last few months, according to police. All of the survivors were arrested as they emerged. They were exhausted, emaciated and could barely make their way unassisted to waiting ambulances.

Aside from the ambulances to convey the barely functioning survivors, a convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to carry away those who had succumbed. Prior to the court-ordered official rescue operation, over a dozen children exited the mine on their own. Most of the illicit miners are foreign nationals living illegally in South Africa. They come from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and their presence is deeply resented by South Africans.

Cage used to rescue miners from abandoned mine   AP

Once more a court ordered authorities to allow food and water to be provided to the miners, last year.  Just a week ago, another ruling forced authorities to launch a rescue operation. The South African government is the very entity that brought a case against Israel to the International Criminal Court, accusing the Jewish State of violence bordering on 'genocide' against Palestinians in Gaza, following a massacre of Israelis by the Gaza-ruling Hamas terrorist group.

Israel stands accused of failing to provide the necessities of life to the Gaza Strip's population under fire as a result of the Hamas terror group installing their command centres, weapons depots and launch sites directly within heavily populated civilian enclaves in Gaza. Ironically this is the height of sanctimony by South Africa's government in view of their lack of humanity in addressing the trapped miners, choosing to deprive them of life as fitting punishment for their illegal mining operations.

Rescuers carry a rescued miner       AP