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Rescue operations at Stilfontein.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s media briefing which was scheduled to take place in Pretoria today has been postponed to a date yet to be announced. He was due to focus on the completion of operations at a disused mine at Stilfontein in the North West.
The court-ordered government-led operations have resulted in bringing 246 illegal miners to the surface.
Seventy-eight bodies were also retrieved from underground.
Some of the illegal miners were emaciated and disoriented.
Meanwhile, police have described the process of identifying the bodies of illegal miners as a mammoth task.
National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe says, “Only two have been identified because the challenge is that the majority of them are undocumented. Some of them are decomposed bodies that came up as bones so that DNA process to try and identify who these individuals is under way. For now, we can confirm that of those that have been arrested a total of nine illegal miners have been hospitalised because they required further medical treatment. They are under police guard in hospital.”
Stilfontein Mine | Identification of deceased illegal miners to begin:
