A community-led rescue effort to help retrieve thousands of suspected trapped illegal miners underground in Stilfontein in the North West is expected to continue today.
Last week, more than 1 000 illegal miners emerged from an abandoned mine shaft in Orkney, after being without water and food.
Community leader in Stilfontein, Thembile Botman says, “We had a long engagement with authorities yesterday, South African Police Services, so yesterday we tried to send water, soft porridge so that today we are able to start the process of helping them to resurface.”
“Yesterday we had the volunteers from the community that were available to assist the authorities to go underground. When the person came back, he gave us a report that there is over 4 000 people underground.”
Botman adds, “He gave us the report that some of the people are dehydrated, because they’ve been there for a long time, without having food and water. Some of them are sick, some of them they can’t move, and he did confirm that there are dead bodies underground.”
PODCAST: Interview with Botman on trapped illegal miners in Stilfontein
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