By Staff Reporter
The police’s Vala Umgodi task teams in the North West have blocked the routes used to deliver food and water to illegal miners, with 225 of them, dehydrated and starving, having now resurfaced in the Orkney area where there are gold mines.
Operation Vala Umgodi, which was launched in December last year, is a multi-disciplinary South African police operation that aims to stop illegal mining and related crimes.
Thousands of people have been arrested since its inception, with the operation exposing a connection between illegal migration and the coercion of migrants in South African mines.
Acting national police commissioner Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya commended the Vala Umgodi task teams over the weekend.
“These 225 illegal miners are part of others believed to be hundreds if not a thousand illegal miners who are stuck underground with no food, water and necessities because the Vala Umgodi teams led by the SAPS and SANDF are blocking routes used to deliver food and necessities to these illegal miners, he said in a statement.
Sibiya said Operation Vala Umgodi was yielding positive results across the country.
“We are closely monitoring the situation that is unfolding in the North West province, we are not backing down until all those illegal miners resurface and are arrested,” he said.
Since its launch, the operation was seen 13,691 suspects nabbed in seven provinces, which all have illegal mining hotspots.
Sibiya said that R5 million in cash and uncut diamonds worth R32 million have also been seized.
The majority of those arrested this weekend are South African, Mozambican, and Lesotho nationals.
Last week, 39 people were arrested near Kimberly for violating South African immigration laws.
Authorities hailed it as a success in combating illegal immigration and the exploitation of labour in unregistered mining operations.
The operation followed weeks of intelligence gathering.
The week before, six people were apprehended for illegal mining on the Free State Another raid earlier in the week, saw five people arrested in Limpopo and the police seizing large amounts of equipment used for extracting minerals and gemstones.
The police believe that powerful and well-organised groups are involved in the illegal mining. The operation forms part of the country’s greater efforts to stamp out extortion and get a grip on organised crime.
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