DOZENS of volunteers have entered an abandoned gold mine in South Africa to help what could be thousands of illegal miners who have been underground for a month.
Because the miners entered the shaft in Stilfontein deliberately, desperate to retrieve gold or mineral residues, the authorities have taken a hard line, blocking food and water supplies.
Earlier in the week, one government minister said: “We are going to smoke them out.”
The miners have refused to co-operate with the authorities as some are undocumented migrants and fear being deported or arrested.
There are reports that the miners have been eating vinegar and toothpaste to survive while underground.
It is feared that their health could be deteriorating, and they may be too weak and frail to leave the mine themselves.
The volunteers, who are organised into three groups of 50, say it takes about an hour to get one person out.
Lebogang Maiyane has been volunteering since the beginning of the week.
“The government doesn’t care about the impact on the right to life of the illegal miners who remain beneath the surface – this is tantamount to murder” he said.
Illegal miners are called “zama zama” (“take a chance” in Zulu) and operate in abandoned mines in the mineral-rich country. Illegal mining costs the South African government hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sales each year.
Police are hesitant to go into the mine as some of those underground may be armed.
Some are part of criminal syndicates or “recruited” to be in one, Busi Thabane, from Benchmarks Foundation, a charity which monitors corporations in South Africa, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
Many South African mines have closed down in recent years and workers have been sacked.
To survive, the miners and undocumented migrants go beneath the surface to escape poverty and dig up gold to sell it on the black market.
Some spend months underground – there is even a small economy of people selling food, cigarettes and cooked meals to the miners.