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[FILE IMAGE]: Community members watch as Senzo Mchunu, South African police minister, inspects outside the mineshaft where it is estimated that hundreds of illegal miners are believed to be hiding underground, after police cut off food and water as part of police operations against illegal miners, in Stilfontein, South Africa, November 15, 2024.
Community members who volunteered to retrieve illegal miners from underground in Shaft 11 in Stilfontein in the North West, have threatened to approach the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) amid reported starvation of the miners.
This, despite a court order handed down by the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria last weekend, instructing that the illegal miners underground be given humanitarian aid by emergency personnel.
Lawyers for Human Rights have, on behalf on the mining community, written to the Community Safety MEC and Police, asking that illegal miners be provided with food, water and medication.
Lawyers for Human Rights’ Thato Gaafane explains, ”We know that our courts are simply institutions of dispute resolutions and the primary duty is not to give police discretion of how to do their work. Our clients are also concerned with the interpretation and implementation of the interim court order.”
“We have seen that community rescue efforts were stopped and the police marked a significant area of the mining area as the shaft. So the court order in paragraph 3.3 does not prohibit the community or non-emergency personnel from being around the mine shaft and continuing with their rescue efforts,” says Gaafane.
Stilfontein Mine | Community members threaten legal action:
Gaafane adds that this infringes upon the rights of these illegal miners.
”The trapped miners have also not received adequate food or water since Saturday. This places them at risks of life threatening health conditions. My clients have attempted to engage with the police to secure immediate assistance for a long time but these efforts were ignored and this is why they approached us to write to the relevant authorities to urgently request that they provide food, water and other necessities to ensure that the miners’ constitutional rights to life, dignity, safety are not compromised.” – Report by Tsholofelo Mogami
