South African police arrest 565 illegal miners

JOHANNESBURG: South African police on Sunday said that 340 illegal miners were arrested after being forced out of an abandoned mine shaft due to a lack of food and water.

This followed the previous arrest of 225 others, bringing the total number of clandestine miners arrested so far to 565. Known locally as “zama zamas” (“those who try” in Zulu), the miners frustrate mining companies and are seen as a source of criminality by local residents.

The arrested miners resurfaced from a mine in Orkney, a gold mining town in the Klerksdorp district of the North West Province. “An additional 340 illegal miners have resurfaced and have been placed under arrest,” police said in a statement on Sunday. Earlier, a police spokesperson had told AFP that 225 miners had been arrested.

They were forced out “as a result of starvation and dehydration”, police said, after security agencies blocked routes used by their accomplices to deliver food and water to the mine.