South African authorities said Tuesday they had pulled dozens of dead miners from a shuttered gold mine where they worked illegally until the blockade, during which police at one point cut off access to food, water and other supplies.
By Tuesday evening, police reported finding 60 bodies and extracting 132 miners who were still alive. The death toll could rise as the government continues a delicate operation, which began on Monday, to evacuate all the miners.
Authorities moved in after a months-long standoff that drew criticism from human rights groups but praise from some South Africans, who view illegal miners as dangerous criminals.
It was unclear Tuesday how many miners remained underground, but activists and authorities estimated there could be hundreds.
The mine blockade near Stilfontein, a town about two hours south of Johannesburg, was part of it national campaign to root out illegal miners, who are locally known as Zama Zamas.
In an attempt to force miners near Stilfontein above ground, officers began cutting off their supply last year by guarding every known access point to the mine and pulling or cutting ropes used to transport goods underground, images released by police show.
The recovery operation began this week following a court challenge filed by a civil society group and amid reports of appalling conditions in the mine, which is more than a mile deep.
A cellphone video of conditions underground released by the advocacy group, Mining Affected Communities United in Action, shows dozens of dead bodies wrapped in plastic and the bony, emaciated bodies of miners who were still alive. The video was shot by one of the miners last week, the organization said.
“Brutal,” said Meshack Mbangula, an activist with a mining group. “Ruthless to Zama Zamas and the community.”
As the mining industry in South Africa declined and mine owners began to abandon unprofitable deposits, the Zama Zamas began mining what was left, without legal permits.
The miners have drawn sharp criticism from some South Africans, who accuse them of maintaining criminal networks of illicit metal trade and encouraging crime in the areas where they operate. There is also ill will because many of them are undocumented immigrants.
South African authorities said they believed the miners near Stilfontein had decided to stay underground to avoid arrest, a claim disputed by rights groups, which said some of the mine’s exits had been blocked.
“We are not sending aid to criminals,” said minister in the presidential office Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. he said at a press conference last year. “We will drive them out with smoke. Criminals are not helped; they should be persecuted.”
The Stilfontein controversy delves into deeper questions about wealth inequality in South Africa and the exploitative history of the mining industry.
Mines were the heart of the economy during apartheid, with the black majority relegated to low-level, low-paid labor while white-owned and foreign-owned entities reaped huge profits. Today, this imbalance mostly exists. Some black-owned businesses made inroads into the industry, but wealth generally remained in the hands of a relatively small elite.
