POLICE stand guard and watch in awe at the possible danger that illegal miners are often faced with when they get in and out of shafts in the hunt for illicit gold particles.
Emergency medical personnel are ready to receive and do health checks on those surfacing.
This was the scene on Wednesday at an old mine in Stilfontein, North West, where at least 4,000 illegal miners are believed to have been trapped since October 18 after law enforcement stopped people from providing them with food and water supplies.
Residents have carried out the rescue operations, as police have refused to enter the shaft to retrieve those underground.
The rescue operation include using the long rope to pull the illegal miners out and more than 1,000 have since resurfaced and arrested immediately since last month.
On Wednesday, the residents, who mostly consisted of retrenched miners, had been pulling one person for about 40 minutes.
One resident said the person they had been pulling could still be alive because his body weight was a lot lighter.
One volunteer said he could see a twinkle of light coming up as they were pulling. They suspected the light to be from the headlamp of the person they were pulling up.
The men seem to be energised and hurry in their steps as they keep pulling the man until he surfaces still fully clothed with a yellow overall, gloves, headlamp and a backpack.
Nobody says anything. The mood is dampened, two men attend to him while the rest slouch in exhaustion. They remove his overalls and boots. He seems weak but conscious of his surroundings. He also doesn’t say much.
Using their scanners, police rush to pat him down for any metal objects on his body. The man is then carried on a stretcher to an ambulance where they check his vital organs. He was the fifth person to be rescued on that day.
Despite the heavy rains and the police’s lack of interest in helping them, the community seemed determined to rescue all those trapped underground.
On Wednesday, minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said the government would not help the trapped illegal miners.
“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be persecuted. We didn’t send them there. And they didn’t go down there for the benefit or good intentions for the republic. So, we can’t help them. Those who want to help them, must go and take their food down there. They will come out and we’ll arrest them,” she said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Image (Community members at Stilfontein are helping trapped zama-zamas, as Police look in awe on Wednesday).
