By Amy Musgrave
The brutal conditions facing illegal miners at Stilfontein in the North West have been revealed in an affidavit released by the Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua) on Friday.
It has supplemented its application to the Constitutional Court to bring to its attention the increasing urgency regarding the rescue of the miners.
Macua wants the court to hear an urgent application to compel the government to provide humanitarian aid to save their lives. Scores have already died underground, with advocacy groups warning that the situation is beyond crisis levels.
Macua spokesperson Magnificent Mndebele said that following the destruction of a community rescue operations pulley system, under the supervision of the police, no further community rescue operations and food drops could be made.
“Macua has had to supplement its application at the Constitutional Court to bring to the court’s attention the escalation of the degree of urgency in the matter.
“In the supplementary information provided to the court, we also included a more recent detailed account of the harrowing and desperate circumstances prevailing underground. The account of the horrendous conditions underground was provided by Clement Moeletsi and corroborated by other survivors who also recently surfaced,” he said in a statement.
Moeletsi was retrieved from Shaft 11 by the Stilfontein community rescue team on 9 December.
Macua said the SA Police Service resorted to a range of unconstitutional measures to deny him access to his legal representatives from Lawyers for Human Rights.
He was eventually released on R500 bail by the Stilfontein Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
According to Moeletsi’s affidavit, his lack of access to his lawyers severely impeded his ability to communicate and provide critical information. However, now that he was out on bail, he was able to give a full account of the situation at Stilfontein.
He entered Shaft 10 in July last year using the rope system. This system, operated manually by “artisanal miners”, required coordination and physical effort to lower individuals into the shaft.
He said that miners relied on the support of others, including community members, to send food, medicine and other essential supplies. But when the police implemented its Operation Vala Umgodi in August, the supplies were completely cut off.
“This abrupt termination of supplies left us utterly blindsided, as we had no warning or explanation for why the provision of food, water, medication and other basic supplies had suddenly stopped.
“Around September 2024, desperation for sustenance reached unimaginable levels. People began eating cockroaches and mixing toothpaste with salt to create makeshift meals, extreme measures born out of sheer deprivation.
“The lack of food and safe drinking water left us with no viable means of nourishment,” the affidavit reads.
From September through to October, the absence of even “basic sustenance was absolute”. Moeletsi went without food or potable water for nearly six weeks.
The prolonged starvation left him physically and mentally drained, and he resorted to drinking toxic underground water, which resulted in severe headaches, abdominal pain, and what he suspects are symptoms of stomach ulcers.
Moeletsi said that the impact of the police operation has been devastating, with many dying due to starvation.
“These were preventable deaths, caused not by natural circumstances but by human decisions. This is what I saw underground, people wasting away, their bodies betraying them in slow, agonising defeat. Hunger stripped them of their strength, turning once vibrant individuals into fragile shadows of themselves.
“At first, there were the pangs of hunger, sharp, and relentless. People held on, trying to ignore the gnawing emptiness inside them. Their faces grew thinner, their eyes sunken.
“As days turned to weeks without food, their movements became sluggish, as if every step was an unbearable effort. The fat that once cushioned their frames disappeared, leaving their bones painfully visible beneath thinning skin. Faces hollowed out, and limbs looked impossibly frail.
“With nothing else to sustain them, their bodies started feeding on their own muscles. Arms that once could dig or carry now trembled under the weight of even the smallest task,” the affidavit reads.
On 13 November, news spread underground that food would be available at Shaft 11. But to get there, the journey was treacherous.
Not everyone chose or was able to take the same path. Some, in their desperation to escape or resurface, turned to the ligaters, which is a single metal rod extending from the deepest part of the mine to the surface above.
The rod was rusted and ill-suited for the weight of humans. But despite the danger, many attempted the climb.
“Tragically, the ligaters became a death trap. Most who tried to scale it fell, their weakened bodies unable to withstand the exertion or maintain their grip on the slippery, corroded surface.
“Those who fell plummeted to the very bottom of the mine, a place so remote and dangerous that recovery was nearly impossible without specialised equipment.”
Moeletsi said it was due to sheer luck that miners had survived.
Mndebele told Inside Politics that there was no date yet for the Constitutional Court application.
The Stilfontein crisis has left South Africa divided over the humane treatment of the illegal miners, who some Cabinet ministers have said should not be helped as they are “criminals”.
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