Sameera Casmod | sameerac@radioislam.co.za
27 November 2024 | 11:22 CAT
3-minute read

Image: Daily Sun

Lawyers for Human Rights have said they will take the SAPS to court on the grounds they are preventing food, water and medication from reaching the illegal miners who are still trapped underground at a disused mine in Stilfontein.

The independent human rights organisation fears that hundreds of the miners will die of starvation and dehydration. They are calling on the SAPS to allow community members to continue sending food parcels and water down the shaft.

According to reports, community members sent approximately 600 packets of instant maize meal and 506 bottles of water to the miners- an amount that Lawyers for Human Rights says is insufficient.

“The idea that people can survive on small bottle of water for more than a week, and that is sufficient, is just outrageous to me,” Lawyers for Human Rights’ Mametlwe Sebei said during an interview on Radio Islam International.

More than 1 000 illegal miners have resurfaced from the Stilfontein mine as part of the ongoing Operation Vala Umgodi. They were rescued through a combination of efforts involving local community members, law enforcement agencies and volunteers.

Community members were actively involved in the physical rescue operations, including using ropes to help miners surface. However, the police are treating the area as a crime scene and have blocked access to the shaft, putting a stop to community rescue efforts.

“[It takes] about 20 to 40 men pulling constantly for an hour without interruption for them to be able to bring one person to the surface… That is what the community was doing, and that is stopped now,” Sebei said.

Miners were either arrested or received assistance after leaving the mine. Efforts to rescue others are still underway, but phase three of the operation, which involves lowering a cage using a crane, is yet to begin.

“That specialised team has been working for over two weeks. We’ve been hearing that they are going to start. They are not starting. In the meantime, people are dying,” Sebei said and added, “One man said to me when he left, there was already two dead bodies underground at the shaft where he is located. That is the actual condition. So every single hour, every single day that we argue on the logistics of this, people are dying.”

Illegal miners at the Stilfontein mine have been using two abandoned shafts to access the underground tunnels. Shaft 11, a 2-kilometre-deep vertical shaft, lacks a staircase, making escape nearly impossible without external assistance. Miners must rely on ropes or improvised means to ascend. Shaft 10 is located approximately 10 kilometres away. To reach it, miners must crawl through a network of narrow, unstable tunnels—a journey that took some miners a week to navigate.

Sebei explained that many of the miners are emaciated and dehydrated and cannot crawl to shaft 10.

“Many of those people… are extremely dehydrated. They are emaciated. They are extremely weak because of months of not having food,” Sebei said, adding that the SAPS must allow a reasonable amount of food, water, and medication to reach the miners while they await rescue from the specialised team.

Listen to the full interview on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.