South Africa Miners Reappear After a Police Operation

Miners are escorted by police officers after being rescued from below ground in an abandoned gold mine for months, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.

By AP

Rescuers continued their operations to bring out survivors among hundreds of miners who were working illegally in an abandoned shaft and have been trapped for months.

More than 100 are believed to have died of starvation or dehydration.

Police said that at least 24 bodies and 37 survivors have been brought out of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine since Friday, but civic organizations and groups representing the miners say more than 500 are still believed to be underground, many of them ill and starving.

Police said they are uncertain how many remain, but it is likely to be hundreds.

Mannas Fourie, CEO of Mines and Rescue service, said that rescuers have faced challenges in the "dangerous operation" and had to start later than they intended due to issues with equipment.

However, he said they will continue working until late at night and have rescued 35 people so far.

The mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, has been the scene of a tense standoff between police, miners and members of the local community since November, when authorities first launched an operation to try and force the miners out.

Relatives of the miners say some of them have been underground since July.

Authorities say the miners are able to come out and are refusing, but that has been disputed by rights groups and activists, who have fiercely criticized police tactics in cutting off the miners' food and water supplies from the surface last year in an attempt to get them to leave.

Civic groups won a court case to force authorities to allow food, water and medicine to be sent down to the miners.

But they say the supplies aren't enough and many of the miners are dying of starvation and unable to climb out because the shaft is too steep and the ropes and pulley system they used to enter have been removed.

They say a proper rescue operation should have been launched months ago.

Some miners have emerged in the last two months and been arrested.

Police says that shows they can come out.

But a right group spokesperson, 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.