Johannesburg (AFP) – More than two dozen illegal miners have been rescued and at least nine bodies recovered from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, as rescue operations resumed Tuesday to reach potentially dozens more people underground.
A professional mine rescue company on Monday sent a large cage to retrieve men at the site near Stilfontein, about 140 kilometres southwest of Johannesburg.
Thousands of illegal miners, many of them hailing from other countries, are said to operate in abandoned mine shafts across mineral-rich South Africa.
In November, authorities launched a crackdown to dislodge the clandestine miners from the Stilfontein shaft, and it is not clear how many people remain, with police saying there could still be hundreds of people underground.
Community leader Johannes Qankase told AFP on Tuesday that 26 people had been rescued and nine bodies recovered the previous day.
'Sick and dehydrated'
"They are very sick. They are very dehydrated. You can see they are nearly dying," he said of the people rescued.
Most had been taken to hospital while two were believed to be in police custody, Qankase said.
Government officials were expected to be at the site Tuesday as the recovery continued.
Authorities have been accused of trying to force the miners to surface by throttling food and water supplies lowered to them by the surrounding community.
The government on Monday stated that more than 1,000 people involved in illegal mining activity in the area had "surfaced and been apprehended" to date.
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There were claims in mid-November that up to 4,000 people were underground, but police have said the figure was probably in the hundreds.
A video released by two miners' rights group Monday showed what appeared to be several corpses wrapped in plastic at the shaft.
AFP journalists at the site Monday filmed what appeared to be several body bags being removed from the cage of the Rescue Winder, the machine installed to reach the miners down the shaft.
Six bodies were brought up from the mine in early December and one in November. There have been claims recently that there were more than 100 corpses underground.
Over the past weeks the miners who have exited the shaft reported dire conditions underground, including acute hunger and dehydration. Some were arrested for being in South Africa without proper documentation.
Locally known as "zama zamas" – "those who try" in the Zulu language – illegal miners frustrate mining companies and are often accused of criminality by residents.
