South African rescuers concluded their search on Thursday for anyone remaining in an illegal gold mine where at least 78 people died during a police siege, as a local volunteer recalled the anguish of removing their bodies from deep underground.
Police had besieged the mine since August and cut off food and water supplies in an attempt to push the miners out so they could be imprisoned, resulting in what the GIWASU labour union described as the biggest state-sponsored massacre since apartheid’s end.
Also read: https://www.tvcnews.tv/2025/01/death-toll-in-south-african-mine-rescue-operations-rises-to-60/
In a court-ordered operation at the mine at Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, rescuers have used a cylindrical metal cage to haul up 78 bodies and 246 survivors, some of whom are famished and disoriented, since Monday.
The survivors, primarily from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho, have been detained and charged with illegal immigration, trespass, unlawful mining, and other offenses.
The police have indicated that they are carrying out a government crackdown on illegal mining, and that cutting off food and water during the siege would have meant “allowing criminality to thrive.”
On Thursday morning, the cage was sent down for the final time, with a camera inside, which authorities characterised as a manner of verifying information from volunteers who went down on Wednesday evening and reported seeing no one left in the mine.
