Stilfontein: SAPS quandary over year-long ‘groceries’ supply
Community volunteers in Stilfontein have spent the last week lowering sacks full of food items such as instant porridge, tinned fish, mageu, and water.
National police commissioner Fannie Masemola admitted on Thursday that the large food supply sent to suspected illegal miners in Stilfontein has forced police to rethink their plans.
“You can say we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. The amount of food that has been sent there definitely might encourage people to stay there for another year or so,” he said during a visit to the area.
Over 1,300 illegal miners have resurfaced from the disused Buffelsfontein gold mine since police cut off their access to food and other essentials in August.
At least two non-profit organisations have approached the courts over what they described as a humanitarian crisis created by the police’s operations at the mine.
Earlier this week, the High Court in Pretoria found the police minister had breached a court order, which compelled authorities to allow volunteers and charity organisations to provide food to the miners underground by setting limits on the amounts and types of supplies that could be lowered into the shafts.
Masemola said the court’s ruling to allow an unlimited supply defeated the purpose of the police operation.
“We’re here where we are; food, water, everything has gone down. It’s now up to them whether they want to come back. They might decide they want to carry on working. So, we’ll go back to the drawing board and see how this is finalised.”
Following the court hearing on Thursday, Masemola said they were pleased some limits were now in place.
“Food and water will now be supplied from Monday to Friday, between 8 am and 4 pm. No food will be lowered on weekends. Hazardous substances, including paraffin, gas, and diesel, will no longer be allowed to be lowered to the illegal miners,” Masemola explained.
Meanwhile, reacting to the court’s postponement of the case to February next year, the applicant (Mining Affected Communities United in Action) has pleaded with the government to take urgent steps to rescue the miners.
“The letters that the miners are sending up paint a horrifying picture of starvation, illness, and the unbearable weight of being confined with dead bodies.”
EIGHTH BODY PULLED TO THE SURFACE
Moments after Masemola left the scene, volunteers retrieved the body of another suspected illegal miner.
His was the seventh body to be brought up since Tuesday, bringing the total number of bodies that were retrieved since early November to eight.
In a note that was sent up at around 9 am on Thursday, those underground said the man had died in the morning.
The letter, written in Sesotho, included the deceased's name and the contact details of his next of kin.
Meanwhile, Masemola said deliberations around the funding for the next phase of the rescue operations were underway.
“The rescue experts require funding to go in there. As I said, we’re engaging other departments with a view to finding out how to do it, who is responsible, and can they [do it].
“Even those experts put a lot of conditions before they can go in there. When you read those conditions, it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to make it.”
Previously, authorities said it costs the state R1 million daily for the mine rescuers to continue working.
The commissioner said they now required an upfront payment before resuming their operations.
Masemola maintained the SAPS’s stance that the miners were not trapped, as they still had the option to come out from alternative exits such as Margaret shaft and shaft 10, where scores of others had emerged.
