Anger rises over 78 deaths in police siege at South African mine

South African rescuers ended their attempts on Jan 16 to find anyone left in an illegal gold mine where at least 78 people died during a police siege, as a local volunteer described the horror of extracting their bodies from deep underground.

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Police had encircled the mine since August 2024 and cut off food and water supplies to try to force the miners out so they could be arrested, resulting in what the Giwasu labour union called the worst state-sponsored massacre since the end of apartheid.

Since Jan 13, rescuers have used a cylindrical metal cage to pull up 78 bodies and 246 survivors, some of them emaciated and disorientated, in a court-ordered operation at the mine near the town of Stilfontein, south-west of Johannesburg.

The survivors, who are mostly from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, have been arrested and charged with illegal immigration, trespass, illegal mining and other offences.

The police have said they were enforcing a government crackdown on illegal mining and that to have allowed food and water down during the siege would have meant "allowing criminality to thrive".

Mr Mzwandile Mkwayi, 36, was one of two volunteers from the local township of Khuma, where most of the miners lived, who spent three days going up and down in the cage to bring out the corpses and survivors.