This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.News24 reports that two illegal miners who resurfaced from the abandoned Buffelsfontein Gold Mine in Stilfontein on Christmas Day have given evidence that some of their trapped colleagues have resorted to eating dead miners "in a desperate attempt to stay alive".
Setsoto Mashiane and Tshohleho Ntsokolo were both trapped underground at Shaft 10 and 11 of the mine. Mashiane was rescued on 25 December 2024, while Ntsokolo used one of the mine's dangerous "ligaters" – a metal rod extending from the deepest part of the mine to the surface above – to resurface. Both men have provided evidence to the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) to support the testimony given by their fellow freed illegal miner, Clement Moeletsi, who painted a very grim picture of how trapped miners have been starving to death since police cut off supplies to them last year. Moeletsi testified that he had gone without food for six weeks and had resorted to drinking contaminated underground water to survive. The police and military have strongly defended their September 2024 decision to shut down access points used by illegal mining gold syndicates to deliver supplies underground at the Buffelsfontein mine, which they said was to force the miners to surface. The human rights group, Mining Affected Communities United in Action (Macua), is using the evidence given by Mashiane, Ntsokolo and Moeletsi to bolster its efforts to persuade the ConCourt Court to order both the provision of food and humanitarian services to the miners and their urgent rescue. On 20 December 2024, the Pretoria High Court dismissed that case. Macua has now applied for leave to appeal to the apex court, which has yet to indicate whether it will hear the matter.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Karyn Maughan at News24 (subscription/trial registration required)
- Read too, Stilfontein zama zama breaks silence: ‘starvation, not illness, killed underground miners’, at IOL News
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page