Illegal miners 'starving' underground in South Africa standoff

One decomposed body was brought out last week from the shaft at Stilfontein, about 140 kilometres (90 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, and there are fears there may be more.

"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," said 35-year-old miner Ayanda Ndabeni who was hoisted out the shaft by rope on Friday.

Around a dozen people have resurfaced in the past week when authorities intermittently blocked locals from lowering down food and water in a nearly two-weeks push to empty the shaft.

A court ordered on Saturday that police must end all restrictions at the abandoned gold mine shaft, a rough hole in the ground in an area of open veld where police were stationed Sunday to see if any more people emerged.

Locals were able to lower 600 packets of instant porridge and 600 litres of water by rope on Saturday, community leader Johannes Qankase told AFP, welcoming the court order.

This was the first supply since Tuesday, he said.

"We can save lives because now," he said. "They must get food, they must get water, they must get their medical pills."

"We've seen from the people who have been resurfacing, they are very weak, they are very dehydrated," he said.

Earlier this week, a local claimed to have been told there were around 4,000 miners underground. Police said the figure was probably in the hundreds.

The reaction of the authorities has outraged many in South Africa, particularly the comments of minister of the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, who told reporters Wednesday: "Honestly, we're not sending help to criminals, we're going to smoke them out."

Thousands of illegal miners, many of them hailing from other countries, are said to operate in abandoned mine shafts in mineral-rich South Africa.

Locally known as "zama zamas" -- "those who try" in the Zulu language -- the miners frustrate mining companies and are accused of criminality by residents.

"We are calling on all those illegal miners to resurface," police spokeswoman Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said Sunday.

The government has said it would assemble a team of mine rescue experts to suggest a plan to remove all the miners, she said.