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People watch as Senzo Mchunu, South African police minister (not pictured), inspects outside the mineshaft where it is estimated that hundreds of illegal miners are believed to be hiding ...
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.
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 ...
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.
A group of miners from an unregistered, rival union are holding hundreds of their colleagues underground for a second day at a gold mine in South Africa over a union dispute, police and mine ...
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.
Zama zamas are illegal artisanal miners in South Africa who occupy closed or operational mines to mine for minerals such as gold, iron ore, coal, and manganese. The term zama zama loosely translates to "take a chance" in isiZulu and they use rudimentary tools and explosives for mining.