Miners at an abandoned South African mining shaft are starving due to police limiting supplies to force out the hundreds of people believed to be stuck underground, according to a community leader and a miner who was rescued on Friday.“There’s nothing left for someone to eat, to drink or anything that can make a human being survive. There is nothing left underground for now,” Ayanda Ndabeni, 35, who was hoisted out of the shaft on Friday, said on Sunday.
In the past week, about a dozen people have resurfaced from the mine after authorities blocked locals from lowering food and water in a nearly two-week push to empty the shaft.
Rescue operations involving volunteers were under way on Sunday in Stilfontein, southwest of the executive capital Pretoria.
The rescued men were visibly weakened as they emerged from the mine with the help of volunteers. Others are reportedly too weak to be rescued.
Police are seen guarding the entrance to the abandoned mine, and they said that they are here to ensure that there are no criminal activities,” she said, noting that activists have been demanding that officers leave the area.
Amid pressure from rights groups, police called in experts to assess the safety of the mine shafts to help decide if officers could carry out a forced evacuation. But an order by the court in Pretoria ruled out that option, as it obliged the police to remove the blockade and permit the exit of the trapped miners.