'Illegal gold miners' run residents out of South African settlement

GUN ATTACKS

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ON crutches and with a bullet lodged in his leg, Miami Chauke is among the few people who did not flee the gun attacks that emptied South Africa’s once-bustling settlement of Sporong, where abandoned tin shacks bake in the sun.

Hundreds of other residents of the area just west of Johannesburg fled two weeks ago, terrorised by violence, extortion and threats they blame on increasingly brazen illegal gold miners.

Taking refuge in a community hall 11km from their homes, the displaced people of Sporong are among several communities living in fear of the several thousand illegal miners estimated to be operating in South Africa.

“They all had guns and we were running but they kept shooting,” 32-year-old Chauke said of the battle one November night that left a bullet in his left leg.

“I am still in pain. I can’t walk even for 200 metres,” he said.

His plastered leg also prevents him from getting in a car to reach the others, who include his wife and three-year-old daughter.