‘Mammoth task’ to identify bodies, police say

It will be a “huge task” to identify the bodies pulled from a disused mine in South Africa this week, a police spokesman said.

Seventy-eight bodies, along with more than 240 illegal miners, have been brought to the surface since Monday as part of a rescue operation, foreman Atlenda Matt told reporters near the top of the shaft in Stilfontein.

They had been underground since at least November.

The authorities then stepped up their efforts to end illegal mining activities, barricading the entrance to the shaft and refusing to let in food and water.

The police have always said that the miners are free to walk out at any time.

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The mine has now been cleared of both bodies and living people, police say.

Only two of the dead have been positively identified so far, said Brig Matt.

“Some of (the corpses) were decomposed bodies that appeared mostly as bones,” she added.

DNA tests are being done, but an additional challenge to uncovering identities is that “the majority (of those found) are undocumented migrants,” she added. Their families may not know they were down the mine shaft.

Most of the survivors are from neighboring countries such as Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

A trade union and human rights activists accused the authorities of overseeing the massacre.

But police defended their actions, saying they were dealing with crime and that the top brass in charge of illegal mining were controlling the flow of supplies and trying to prevent people from coming to the surface.

During a visit on Tuesday, the police and mines ministers were heckled and told to leave by an angry mob that blamed the government for the deaths.

Police said more than 1,500 miners surfaced before the rescue operation began.

However, others remained underground either because they feared arrest or were forced to stay there by gangs that control the mine.

Many mines in South Africa have been abandoned over the past three decades by companies that did not find them economically viable.

The mines are taken over by gangs, often ex-employees, who sell recovered minerals on the black market.

This includes the Stilfontein mine, about 145 km (90 miles) southwest of the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, which has been at the center of government efforts to curb the illegal industry.

A rescue cage was being lowered down a shaft to reach the miners, who are believed to be at least 2 km (1.2 mi) underground.

Many of the survivors had been without food and water since November, leaving them emaciated. They are currently receiving medical attention.

Authorities say they will be charged with illegal mining, illegal entry and violating immigration laws because the majority of the miners are undocumented migrants.

“This is a crime against the economy, this is an attack on the economy,” said Mines Minister Gwede Mantashe on Wednesday as he defended the hard line taken against the miners.

South Africa relied heavily on miners from countries such as Lesotho and Mozambique before the industry went into decline.

Unemployment in South Africa is currently more than 30% and many former miners say they have no alternative source of income.