Unbearable conditions and a cut in food supply have forced illegal miners, better known as zama zamas, out of their hiding place and into the open at abandoned mine shafts in Orkney in the North West.
The police and the SA National Defence Force had set out on a mission to ambush and drive out the illegal miners from the mine shafts.
The operation led to the arrest of close to 600 zama zamas who resurfaced over two days.
The first cohort, which were about 225 illegal miners, emerged on Saturday, leading to their arrest.
On Sunday morning, more than 300 people came out, and police also arrested them. The arrested individuals were reportedly from South Africa, Lesotho and Mozambique.
Trapped underground without food
“The arrested were part of the thousands of illegal miners, which we believe they had been trapped underground without any food or water supply,” Brigadier Sabata Mokgwaabane, the North West provincial police spokesperson, said on Sunday.
“The conditions forced them out of the abandoned mine shafts.”
The operation is part of the police’s Vala Umgodi meant to flush out the zama zamas running amok in the country’s abandoned mines.
Vala Umgodi is a Zulu phrase meaning close the pit.
Under heavy pressure from public scrutiny on their failure to deal with the disastrous effects of zama zamas, who do not hesitate to kill anyone on their way, the police and the soldiers blocked nearby communities from supplying food to the illegal miners.
Full might of the law
Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, the national police deputy commissioner for crime detection, said the intention was to ensure that illegal miners resurface so that they can face the full might of the law.
“More than 13 000 suspects have been arrested in the seven provinces that are considered hotspots for illegal mining since the Vala Umgodi was introduced in 2023,” said Sibiya.
During the operations, police seized uncut diamonds with a street value of R32-million, including a sum of more than R5-million.
The illegal miners are part of a thriving illicit economy and at the heart of it is a South African scrap metal and gold dealer, gold refineries, and exporters coining big in untaxed income.
