By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South African Police Services (SAPS) have confirmed fourteen illegal miners have died and scores of others injured at a disused mine in Nkaneng, near Rustenburg, North West.
The bodies were discovered in an abandoned mine shaft near the Nkaneng informal settlement in Marikana on Tuesday, 11 August 2026.
It is believed that the walls of the disused mine caved in while the group of illegal miners were underground. Other are still trapped in the mine.
“Fourteen illegal miners, mostly Basothos, died during a rockfall,” police spokesperson Colonel Adele Myburgh said.
“Eight others were hospitalised and an unknown number of illegal miners are currently possibly stuck under the ground. Police are on the scene, and the scene is still active,” she said.
The incident was reported late Monday, Myburgh added.
Illegal mining has plagued South Africa for decades through small-time pilfering and organised criminal networks.
Typically, undocumented miners move into mines abandoned by commercial miners and seek to extract whatever is left. Some are under the control of violent criminal gangs.
Illegal mining costs the government and mining industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually in lost sales, taxes and royalties.
President Cyril Ramaphosa took the unusual step to deploy soldiers on the streets in a year long operation to combat organized crime, with illegal mining one of the focuses of the operation.