Dozens of bodies were recovered from a mine in South Africa after a confrontation with police that lasted months

First responders recovered dozens of bodies and hundreds of emaciated survivors from an abandoned gold mine this week, but Zinzi’s brother Tom was not among them.

South African police said there was no one left in the mine after they recovered 78 bodies and 246 survivors over the past two days.

On Wednesday, they announced the end of the court-ordered rescue operation, shortening an operation that was supposed to last 10 days, bringing a harrowing end to the months-long standoff with illegal miners and their families.

“I don’t want to announce his death,” Tom said. As it happens Host Neil Coxall shortly after leaving the site of the operation. “I’m optimistic and I pray to God that he will come back.”

Illegal mining attracts desperate workers

Tom has not heard from her brother, Ayanda, since July 2024, when he first told her that he was going to the abandoned Bavelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein to prospect illegally.

Tom says that at first she did not approve of his choice. But she said there were no other jobs available to him, and he had to find a living to take care of his children.

“(He was) risking his life by hiding and saying he was going to try to make ends meet,” she said. “It is a very sad moment for us as a family.”

Illegal mining is a common practice in South Africawhere More than 30 percent of the population is unemployed.

Migrants and other people desperate to make ends meet search the country’s thousands of abandoned mines for mineral deposits, often used by organized crime networks.

In an attempt to crack down on illegal mining, police closed most of the exit points at the Stilfontein mine in August, while hundreds of men were still working inside.

The aim, as one minister said at the time, was to “eliminate them”.

The community says the miners starved to death

Police and government officials have maintained from the beginning of the standoff that the miners were never trapped, but rather did not want to come out and face charges.

But the miners’ friends, families and supporters said many were so weak, hungry and dehydrated that they could not survive after police removed the pulley system used to deliver food and water supplies to them.

A court ruled in December to allow volunteers to send essential supplies to the miners, and a separate ruling last week ordered the state to begin the rescue operation.

Mining Affected Communities United in Action, which brought the case to court, said some miners were trapped deep in different parts of the mine, which is 2.5 kilometers deep and has several boreholes, numerous levels and a maze of tunnels.

The South African Federation of Trade Unions accused the state on Tuesday of allowing men to “starve to death in the depths of the earth.”

“These miners, many of them desperate, unregistered workers from Mozambique and other southern African countries, were left to die in one of the most horrific displays of willful state neglect in modern history,” she said in a statement.

South African police spokesperson Athlinda Mathie defended the operation.

“Our mission was to combat crime and that is exactly what we were doing,” Mathie said at the site on Wednesday.

“By providing food, water and necessities to these illegal miners, police will provide entertainment and allow crime to flourish.”

“Please pray for us.”

All of the survivors pulled out this week, many of whom were clearly vulnerable, were taken into police custody.

Police said 1,576 miners went out on their own between August and the start of the rescue operation. They added that all of them were arrested and 121 of them have already been deported.

“If you get out and are able to walk, they take you straight to the cells,” he said. Mzukisi Jam, a civil society activist who was on site throughout the rescue operation.

Meanwhile, Tom says she heard that some miners were exiting on their own through a different shaft. She says she hopes and prays that her brother is on his way there now.

When she spoke to CBC, her family had not yet been told that the rescue operation was over.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m afraid to look into my mother’s eyes and tell her the news today.”

She asked people around the world watching this news to keep her and her family in their prayers.

“I want my brother to get out alive,” she said. “Please pray for us.”