By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Four illegal miners have died, with six already resurfaced and 150 are trapped inside an abandoned mine in Sabie, Mpumalanga.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Donald Mdhluli says the suspected illegal miners informed security guards that they had been trapped inside an abandoned mine. They also said others were still in the mine.
Mdhluli said rescue teams successfully extracted two foreign nationals, aged 23 and 24, and four South African citizens from the mine.
“According to the rescued individuals, they had been forced to work and mine for gold by their captors under dangerous and dire conditions,” he said.
“Tragically, four individuals lost their lives while trapped inside the mine shaft.”
Mdhluli said a recent altercation on 28 November 2024, in which alleged illegal miners attacked law enforcement officials, supports this suspicion.
Law enforcement officials clashed with alleged illegal miners, resulting in a K9 unit warrant officer sustaining injuries and police fatally shooting three suspects.
The acting provincial commissioner of the South African Police Service (Saps) in Mpumalanga, Major General Dr. Zeph Mkhwanazi, has assured the public that law enforcement agencies are monitoring the situation.
Rescue efforts are ongoing. Police, emergency medical services, private security, and plantation companies are working to bring the illegal miners to safety. However, the possibility of more fatalities remains.
South Africa had once been the world’s largest producer of gold but that has been on the decline over the past few decades. A number of former mining operations now are abandoned and have fallen into disrepair.
Thousands of illicit miners pick through these shuttered mines in search of gold and other minerals in a practice considered extremely dangerous due to the state of the mines.