A total of 106 illegal miners and 51 bodies were brought to the surface on the second day of rescue operations at an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, according to police.
This brought the death toll to 60 as nine bodies were recovered on the first day of rescue operations on Monday at the old Buffelsfontein Gold Mine in Stilfontein, North West Province. On the same day, 26 illegal miners were rescued.
"On day two of operations, a total of 106 alive illegal miners were retrieved and arrested for illegal mining; 51 were certified dead," the South African Police Service (SAPS) said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Rescue operations were expected to resume for a third day on Wednesday. Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, who visited the area on Tuesday, said the operations are estimated to continue for about 10 days.
In the statement, Athlenda Mathe, national spokesperson for the SAPS, confirmed that those rescued have since been arrested. Among those arrested on Tuesday are 67 from Mozambique, 26 from Lesotho, and 11 from Zimbabwe, in addition to two South African nationals.
Mathe said police have confiscated materials, including more than 640 kg of gold-bearing material and 6.2 kg of refined gold, as well as explosives, firearms, and cash amounting to 52.49 million rand (about 2.78 million U.S. dollars) from the illegal miners since December 2023, when authorities started operations against illegal mining.
The situation at disused mine shafts in Stilfontein has been developing since August 2024, when small groups of illegal miners began emerging from the shafts. Since then, over 1,576 illegal miners have come to the surface and been arrested, the majority of whom are foreign nationals from neighboring countries, according to the police statement.
Mathe said, "1,540 illegal miners are still in police custody; 121 illegal miners have already been deported, which include 80 Mozambicans, 30 Basotho nationals, 10 Zimbabweans, and one Malawian."
"46 have already been found guilty of illegal mining, trespassing, and contravening the immigration act. The court handed down a sentence of 12,000 rand or six months wholly suspended imprisonment sentence for five years on condition that they are not found guilty of similar crimes," she said.
Many gold mines that were closed over the decades due to declining production have been taken over by illegal foreign miners who reopen them in search of gold.
Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe, who also visited the Buffelsfontein mine on Tuesday to assess the progress of the rescue operations, highlighted the significant economic impact of illegal mining, estimating that it resulted in a loss of 60 billion rand in 2024.
"It is a criminal activity. It is an attack on our economy by foreign nationals in the main," added Mantashe.