Today's Labour News

Sunday Times Daily reports that hundreds of unemployed men in Khuma township between Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom in North West were allegedly recruited to an abandoned shaft with promises of lucrative wages only to end up in a huge illegal mining ring.

The operations, which involved kingpin foreign nationals, have led to dozens losing their lives allegedly due to hunger and dehydration, but police have not ruled out the possibility of murders. Most of the people who responded to the call were foreign nationals from Mozambique, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, who form the majority of those arrested or found dead. There were also allegations that some of them were kidnapped and kept underground against their wishes. Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said their investigations were looking into kingpins who were running the operations underground and were also responsible for recruiting the illegal miners under false pretenses. “We are also investigating the allegations that the majority of them [zama zamas] were kidnapped. They were brought here under false pretenses and were not given a clear picture of what is happening here,” Mathe said. She asserted that the blame for what transpired at the Stilfontein shaft should be squarely placed on the kingpins of the illegal mining operations. Mathe said police were following up on the information already gathered about the recruitment and the operations underground including zama zamas being denied food by the kingpins.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Isaac Mahlangu at Sunday Times Daily (subscriber access only)
• Read too, Stilfontein illicit gold trade: Police probing how the mineral changes hands from mine to market, at EWN

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