“Mammoth task” to identify bodies, police say

A police spokesman said it would be a “mammoth task” to identify bodies recovered from an abandoned mine in South Africa this week.

Seventy-eight bodies, along with more than 240 illegal miners, have been brought to the surface since Monday as part of a rescue operation, Brigadier Atlanda Mate told reporters near the top of the Stilfontein mine.

They have been underground since at least November.

That’s when the authorities stepped up efforts to end illegal mining, surrounding the entrance to the mine and refusing to provide food and water.

The police always said that the miners could walk out at any time.

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The mine was cleared of bodies and living people, according to the police.

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

“Some (corpses) were decomposed bodies that turned out to be mostly bones,” she added.

DNA tests are being carried out, but an added challenge to identifying is that “most (of those found) are undocumented migrants,” she added. Their families may not know they ended up in the mine in the first place.

The vast majority of those who made it out alive were from neighboring countries such as Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The trade union and human rights activists accused the authorities of having organized the massacre.

But the police defended their actions, saying that they were dealing with crime and that they were wardens responsible for illegal mining, controlling the flow of supplies and trying to prevent people from going to the surface.

During Tuesday’s visit, an angry mob, which blamed the government for the deaths, insulted the police and mines ministers and ordered them to leave.

Police said that more than 1,500 miners came to the surface before the rescue operation began.

However, others remained underground either because they feared arrest or were forced to stay there by the 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 have been taken over by gangs, often ex-employees, who sell the minerals they find on the black market.

This includes a mine in Stillfontein, about 145 km (90 miles) southwest of the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, which has been the focus of government efforts to crack down on the illegal industry.

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

Many of the survivors had been without food or water since November, leaving them emaciated. Now they are receiving medical care.

Authorities say they will face charges of illegal mining, trespassing and immigration violations because most of the miners are undocumented migrants.

“It’s a crime against the economy, it’s an attack on the economy,” Mines Minister Gwede Montashe said on Wednesday, defending the hard line taken against the miners.

South Africa was heavily dependent on miners from countries such as Lesotho and Mozambique before the industry declined.

Unemployment in South Africa is currently over 30% and many former miners say they have few alternative sources of income.