(Bloomberg) -- The South African police intensified efforts to force hundreds of illegal gold miners holed up in underground shafts to the surface so they can be arrested.
The police sealed off access to the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein, about 156 kilometers (97 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, several weeks ago to deny the miners access to food and other essentials. While more than 1,000 of the miners have surfaced and been detained, many more are still thought to be below ground and there are mounting fears their lives may be at risk.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that while sealing off supplies to the miners “has generated a great deal of public debate” and is “potentially volatile,” he mostly took a hard line against them because they were operating illegally and posed a risk to the economy, nearby communities and personal safety.
“The Stilfontein mine is a crime scene where the offense of illegal mining is being committed,” he said in a statement. “It is standard police practice everywhere to secure a crime scene and to block off escape routes that enable criminals to evade arrest.”
The problem of illegal mining isn’t unique to Stilfontein — there are about 6,000 abandoned mines strewn across the country and a number of them have been accessed by informal miners known locally as zama zamas. South Africa and its mining industry lose about 70 billion rand ($3.9 billion) a year to those who mine gold illegally, according to the government.
Minerals Council South Africa, which represents the nation’s biggest mining companies, declined to comment, deferring to the police and government. The lobby group has said that illegal mining is inter-related with organized crime and that operators have links to global criminal syndicates.
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