Saftu’s Zwelinzima Vavi applauds court order for rescue of trapped illegal miners in Stilfontein

General secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), Zwelinzima Vavi, has expressed support for the court order that allows the rescue of illegal miners trapped underground in Stilfontein, North West.

The miners, referred to as zama zamas, have been stuck in the mine shaft for several months facing dangerous conditions.

“We are glad the police, thanks to a court order, are allowing food and water to be taken down. The operation to bring the artisan miners to the surface is under way. It takes more than 30 minutes using a rope to bring one miner up from 2km underground. The operation will last more than a week,” Vavi said on X.

The interim order was issued on Saturday after an urgent application by the Society for the Protection of Our Constitution.

The Pretoria high court mandated that the mine shaft be reopened to enable trapped miners to exit while restricting entry to non-emergency personnel. The case was postponed to Tuesday for government ministers to make their representations.

Vavi also thanked the police minister Senzo Mchunu for his humanitarian approach to the matter.  “Minister Mchunu chose a humanitarian route when some heartless South Africans were calling on the government to bury the desperate fathers alive,” said Vavi.

Mchunu visited the scene on Friday and appointed North West MEC for community safety and transport management Wessels Morweng to lead a rescue team composed of police officers, district and local mayors, community leaders, mine owners and government departments.

The miners, who have been underground for months, faced a severe lack of food and water after police blocked supplies in an attempt to force them to emerge. Some miners reportedly died while others became too weak to resurface. Many of the zama zamas refused to come up as they feared arrest after police action in the area, including Operation Vala Umgodi, in Orkney earlier this month.

Vavi commented on the harsh realities faced by the miners, noting that extreme desperation often drives individuals to work in such dangerous conditions. 

“Generally it takes extreme levels of desperation to work underground using a cage. But it takes a family catastrophe to drive a man to go back down 2km to 3km into the bowels of the earth using a rope for less than half the salary you used to earn before you were retrenched,” Vavi said.

More than 1,000 illegal miners have resurfaced in recent weeks after Operation Vala Umgodi by police in North West.

Vavi said many miners are recruited from economically depressed regions.

“Recruiters go to the most depressed parts of the Eastern Cape's rural east and Lesotho and Mozambique's rural areas to find men desperate to work under such dangerous conditions.”

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