Starving miners fearing arrest have spent months underground, blocked by South African authorities who say they are cracking down on illegal operations.

Police prevented relatives from delivering food, water and other essentials to those hiding in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, police say. South African Human Rights Commission.

Reports vary widely on the number of people trapped in the mine and their health conditions.

The authorities did not want to help.

A recent court victory should have allowed relatives to resume sending essential goods to those who sheltered in the 2.5 kilometer-deep mine for the past three months.

However, lawyer Yasmin Omar, who is working to end the blockade, told the ABC that authorities had intensified their siege and called on the defense forces to support the police.

Starving miners refuse to leave

Ms Omar said the government had ordered agents to surround the mine.

“This is an effort by the South African government to make things easier for its foreign mining investors,” she said.

“They are acceding to the demand of foreign investors to protect the mine and are abandoning or limiting the rights of their own citizens to achieve this goal.”

The police wanted to cut off the supply and force the miners to the surface where they could be arrested.

“When these guys went underground, the local community, their family members would drop food parcels, water, blankets and whatever they deemed necessary, into this well and the miners would get food.” , she explained.

Authorities said about 1,000 people came out of the mine, but most stayed inside to avoid confronting police and prosecution.

“It’s become a dead end,” Ms. Omar said.

“So the police said, ‘Well, look, if we don’t feed them long enough, then if it’s safe, they’ll come out.’

The miners held on, but they suffered from lack of food.

Last week, a body was removed from the mine, Ms Omar said.

This panicked the relatives of those who remained in hiding.

They begged the police to allow them to send food, but the police would not budge, Ms. Omar said.

Ms Omar said she was not arguing that minors should not be prosecuted.

“But we say it’s inhumane to trap them there and take the position that either you get out and go into prison with us or you die there,” she told ABC.

So far, only three people have been rescued.

When they came to the surface they reported there were around 4,500 people underground, Ms Omar said people at the scene told her about this.

“The numbers are staggering,” she said.

“People told us it was horrible there. People underground are dying.

Police disputed the number of people believed to have been trapped by those who managed to come to the surface.

“We believe these figures are exaggerated,” said police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe.

Officials said they believed about 350 to 400 people were in the mine.

The authorities don’t want to help any of them, but they have been ordered to stop blocking access to the mine – for now.

Court orders police to stop barricades

Under an interim court order issued on Tuesday, police were asked to stop blocking access to the mine so that emergency services could enter and people trapped inside could get out.

Deliveries of essential supplies like food and water should also be able to resume.

But it seems unlikely that authorities will send much help.

Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not assist in the rescues.

Ms Mathe said “no police officer, soldier or government official will go down into an abandoned mine.”

“There is a high risk of loss of life,” she said.

If minors come out of the basement, the police will be ready to arrest them. warned in a press release.

“Anyone who resurfaces will continue to be assessed by emergency medical personnel on scene,” police said.

“Those who are healthy will be treated and detained. Those who require further medical attention will be taken to hospital under police guard.”

According to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, some minors “could be heavily armed”.

“It is well established that illegal miners are recruited by criminal gangs and are part of wider organized crime syndicates,” he said. in a statement earlier this week.

“The Stilfontein mine is a crime scene where the crime of illegal mining is being committed. It is common police practice around the world to secure a crime scene and block escape routes that allow criminals to escape. ‘escape arrest.’

He said police would bring those in the mine back to the surface safely.

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The barricades tighten, the army is called

Ms Omar said that despite the court’s interim order ordering authorities to ease the blockade, it had in fact been strengthened.

“Police remained on scene and maintained their position of denying the community access to this entrance to drop off supplies,” she said.

“And in fact the lockdown of that area became more intense. They called the South African National Defense Force, they called the ministry and that just made the situation much more tense and much worse.”

Ms. Omar said authorities also prevented some of her staff from going to the site to inform her relatives about the legal proceedings.

Military personnel told their staff the area was closed from 5 p.m., she said.

“Our country has prided itself on being a free people and saying that we are not going to let past events like those that happened during apartheid be repeated in our country,” she said .

“And for us, it looks exactly like that. We now have curfews. We have people in lockdown when it’s not necessary. We have military descending into civilian society.”

A further hearing at the Pretoria High Court has been set for Thursday.

The South African Human Rights Commission has also launched an investigation into the police’s handling of the situation.

Why are people in an abandoned gold mine?

The government refers to those trapped underground as “illegal miners.”

Since mid-October, a new crackdown on illegal mining operations has taken place, concentrated in the North West province where the Stilfontein mine is located.

David Van Wyk, a senior researcher at the Johannesburg-based Benchmarks Foundation, told CNN there were about 6,000 abandoned mines in South Africa.

They become targets for illegal mining if they are not properly shut down by the large multinational companies that exploited them. he said.

Ms Omar told the ABC poor people were often recruited by criminal gangs to go to closed or inactive mines.

“They… tell them if you go underground, we’re going to pay you to take certain things we want out of the underground,” she said.

She added that it remains to be determined whether those in the mine knew they were involved in an illegal operation.

“They really may have no idea whether their actions are legal or illegal, and that’s the criminal standard that has to be met,” she told ABC.

“For them to be found guilty of doing something illegal… it would have to be demonstrated that they intentionally – knowing it was illegal – went into that mine.”

Illegal mining is common in South Africa’s former gold mining areas, with miners going into closed pits to dig for possible remaining deposits.

Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with neighboring communities, who have complained of illegal miners, often from neighboring countries, committing crimes ranging from theft to rape.