Photo: EPA-EFE / STRINGER

Horror in South Africa: Over a hundred "wild" miners are dead, they were trapped underground for months

At least 100 miners who mined illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa are dead after being trapped in a shaft for months while police tried to extricate them, reports said.Washington Post” citing a statement from a representative of a group that represents miners.

The tragedy became public knowledge after the sister of one of the miners published a letter he sent her, which said 109 people had already died at the Buffelsfontein mine, about 160 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg.

Sabelo Mnguni, a spokesman for the mining group United in Action, told The Associated Press that a phone sent to the surface with some rescued miners on Friday contained two videos showing dozens of bodies inside the mine, wrapped in plastic bags. .

Mnguni says "at least a hundred people" died in the mine.

"It is assumed that they died of starvation or dehydration," he said, adding that 18 bodies had been recovered since Friday.

Photo: EPA-EFE / KIM LUDBROOK

Police launched an operation in November to force the miners out, later cutting off their sources of food, water and medicine. The blockade was lifted by court order, but miners received only small amounts of supplies in November and December. Since then, more than 150 miners have managed to get out of the mine, forced by hunger and thirst. According to the authorities, the 400 miners who remained in the shaft deliberately did not come out to avoid arrest.

Illegal mining has been on the rise in South Africa in recent decades as many mines have been abandoned and declared industrially depleted. They still contain small amounts of gold, and analysts estimate that there are about 30.000 illegal miners in the country, known as "zama zama", who produce as much as 10 percent of South Africa's gold. They work in 6.000 abandoned mines, often controlled by violent criminal gangs, it says.The Guardian".

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