It is a suffocating face to face. According to residents of Stilfontein, in the North West province of South Africa, more than 4,000 illegal miners are believed to be “stuck” underground, surrounded by the police, who cut off their supply to force them to come up and arrest them. Thursday, November 14, a lifeless body It was brought to the surface by volunteers while police refused to risk going down into the disused mine.
The maneuver is part of a large attack operation launched by the South African authorities in December 2023 against the illegal exploitation of some 6,000 disused mines that dot the territory. Operation Vala Umgodi (“Cover the holes”in Nguni language) has seen a boost in recent weeks in the North West province.
Since October 18, 1,000 illegal miners have been forced to resurface before being “selected” by police scouring the countryside to cut off the supply chains necessary for these men, who sometimes remain underground for months. On November 2, in a press release, the police celebrated the handover of more than 200 minors, “consequence of hunger and thirst”.
“We are going to suffocate them”
A harshness assumed by the government. Questioned during a press conference on Wednesday, November 13, Minister Delegate to the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, laughed in response to a journalist’s question asking if the authorities were considering sending aid to the miners trapped in Stilfontein. . “You really want us to send help to criminals? We will not send them help. We are going to suffocate them, they are going to come back up. “Criminals should not be helped, they should be persecuted”press Mme Ntshavheni.
The day before, the authorities had finally agreed to allow the volunteers to leave water and food after being alerted to the precarious situation at the bottom of the mine by a resident sent to “reconnaissance mission”. “He returned explaining that there were more than 4,000 people underground and several corpses. He told us that the people were so weak that they couldn’t pull themselves up with ropes like they usually do. For this reason we have decided to authorize [des volontaires] to give them a little help, so that they regain strength and can go out, nothing more”explains Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone, spokesperson for the North West Province police.
Since volunteers were allowed to interact with the miners, five men agreed to be taken to the surface. Very weak, they were treated by medical teams. According to local media, the miners, who refused to return due to the prospect of being arrested, will now demand that the weakest be rescued and that the bodies of the dead be returned before agreeing to surrender.
“Inhuman and irresponsible”
On Thursday, November 14, the North West police spokesperson could not confirm this claim, but Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has already made it known that the police will not go looking for anyone, dead or alive. “It is not our job to recover the bodies of criminals”the Minister Delegate to the Presidency coldly explained.
Words “inhuman and irresponsible”according to Phillip Mankge, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers, a miners’ union. “Our position is that artisanal mining must be regulated so that illegal miners can work legally and pay taxes.”details in World union spokesperson, Livhuwani Mammburu. What worries us is that the authorities seem to target poor black miners, while the Chinese unconcernedly organize the illegal exploitation of certain chrome mines. »
Questioned by the South African television network Newzroom Afrika, the president of another union, the Association of Miners and Construction Union, Joseph Mathunjwa, drew a parallel between the current situation and the Marikana tragedy in 2012, in which thirty died. and four miners. They were killed by police, who opened fire on hundreds of strikers in the same northwestern province. Not all South Africans share this opinion. Many are hostile to these illegal miners, often illegal immigrants from neighboring Lesotho or Mozambique, whom they accuse of plundering the South African subsoil and terrorizing local communities.
