After an illegal gold mine collapsed, survivors were found but around 100 miners are believed to have died and more than 400 are still trapped underground.
Rescuers on Tuesday pulled several survivors and bodies from one of South Africa’s deepest mines, where hundreds of illegal miners have been trapped for months in an abandoned shaft.
A miners’ rights group said at least 18 bodies and 26 survivors had been pulled from Buffelsfontein gold mine since Friday. More than 100 miners are believed to have died of starvation or dehydration, while 400 are still waiting to be rescued, according to the organization Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA).
Police said they did not know how many juveniles remained, but it was likely hundreds.
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 last November, when the Authorities launched an operation to try to force the minors out. According to reports, some of them are underground since July or August of last year.
Authorities say minors are able to get out and refuse, but that claim is disputed by rights groups and activists, who have criticized police tactics of cut off water and food supplies to miners from the surface to try to force them out.
MACUA, which sued authorities in December to force them to allow food, water and medicine to be sent to miners, released two smartphone videos showing dozens of corpses of miners wrapped in plastic and emaciated survivors begging for help. The images could not be independently verified by euronews.
South Africa’s police minister and mineral resources minister were due to visit the mine on Tuesday. In November, Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told the press that the government would not help the miners, whom she considered to be “criminals”.
