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Volunteer rescue workers and community members leave the area near a closed mine where illegal miners are inside in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. ... For more CNN news and ...
A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners to allow emergency workers to gain access to a mine shaft where several hundred are believed to remain after the ...
South Africa's illegal miners – called zama zamas, or "take a chance" in colloquial Zulu – are estimated to number more than 50,000, a tenfold increase in two decades.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African authorities have come under intense scrutiny for their response after civic groups said hundreds of miners have been trapped deep in an abandoned gold mine for months, with more than 100 of them believed to have died of starvation or dehydration.
South African authorities have for years struggled to stop groups of miners from going into some of the gold-rich country's 6,000 abandoned or closed mines to search for leftover deposits. According to officials, South Africa lost more than $3 billion in gold to the illicit trade last year.
But Mnguni said these particular miners were not criminals but former mine employees who had been put out of work when mines closed and were left desperate. “The miners go back to the mine because they live in poverty,” he said. ___ Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. 01/13/2025 16:52 -0500
South Africa's government says it will let thousands of illegal miners starve until they accept their fate and emerge from an abandoned shaft to face arrest. South Africa is trying to starve 4,000 ...
Illegal gold miners, commonly referred to as "zama zamas", operate in abandoned mine shafts and use the empty gas cylinders, known as "phendukas", to process the stolen ore. The cylinders, often stolen, are first drained of gas, then cut open so that ore can be placed in them along with a steel ball which crushes the ore as the cylinder is rotated.