The trapped miners at Stilfontein may, for now, immediately be supplied with food, water and medication from the community and charitable organisations.
This followed an urgent application on Sunday, after it was said that it is now a question of life and death for the trapped miners, with several already dead underground and those who are still alive likely to die (improves clarity) as their bodies are wasting away, and they are trying to survive on anything they can find, such as toothpaste, vinegar and salt.
This is according to a community-based organisation called the Mining Affected Community in Action (Macua) who turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, calling for an urgent order compelling the government to provide aid such as food and water to the trapped miners.
Judge Nicolene van Nieuwenhuizen late on Sunday afternoon granted an interim order that for now, the miners may immediately receive food and other aid. This order will remain in place until Thursday, when the matter will fully be argued in court and when the government will have a chance to state their case.
This second urgent application regarding the Stilfontein miners comes on the heels of that brought by the Society for the Protection of Our Constitution.
Judge Brenda Neukircher last week turned down the society’s urgent application after the police and the minister of mineral resources gave the assurance that the miners are not trapped, but that they can exit through the Margaret shaft. The court at the time also accepted the evidence by the government that rescue operations were being put in place to assist the miners to surface.
The judge also pointed out in her judgment that the applicant in that matter relied only on hearsay evidence to try and prove their case regarding the dire situation of the miners.
But Sabelo Mnguni, the national administrator of Macua, in the latest application, said the miners are truly stuck and more are likely to die if they do not receive very urgent help. This is because some are too weak to make it to the Margaret shaft to try and exit and because it is near impossible to exit through this opening.
The application, which was launched with the aid of Lawyers for Human Rights, is supported by two further affidavits - one which is a first-hand account of a miner who has meanwhile surfaced and who reported that there were at least four dead bodies underground when he managed to surface.
Macua asked the court to declare the “conduct of the police in using starvation and dehydration as a tool for combatting criminality” be declared invalid and inconsistent with the Constitution.
The court was also asked to order the government to provide the miners with urgent humanitarian aid, including food, water, and medication pending the finalisation of rescue services.
Alternatively, they asked that community members and charitable organisations be allowed to provide this humanitarian aid.
The applicant further wanted an order that community rescue efforts be permitted to resume, pending the official start of the extraction of the miners by the official mine rescue services.
Judge Van Nieuwenhuizen only at this stage granted a limited portion of what was asked.
Mnguni said in his affidavit that this is a humanitarian crisis which concerns the entrapment of hundreds to thousands of miners who have been stuck underground for about three months as a result of Operation Vala Umgodi. He made it clear that the applicants are not against the operation, but about how it is being conducted.
Mnguni said while there were promises of mine rescue services on the way, which entails that they must first access the situation for safety reasons, to date no miners were rescued through these operations. Questions about when these operations will start also remain unanswered, he said.
Mnguni expressed his concern that among those who recently managed to surface, was a 14-year-old child. He said it does not matter whether there are illegal immigrants among those stuck underground, as we have a constitutional duty to ensure that as many lives of those stuck underground can be saved.
He said following the batch of food and water which were sent down on November 16, no further humanitarian aid has been provided to date.
Following consultations with a miner who managed to surface on November 13, Lepheana Gcina, it appears that resurfacing is near impossible. Conditions in the nearly 2km deep mine are extremely harsh with narrow tunnels. It is hot with water dripping, dark and muddy.
According to Gcina, the miners are weak and barely able to survive. While the government said they can exit through the Margaret shaft, he said the miners are 20km away from it and they are still searching for the shaft as they do not exactly know where it is located.
“Considering how weak and frail the miners are, making it to the Margaret shaft will be a miracle,” he said.
Others who have attempted to make it to the Margaret shaft turned around as they were confronted with a huge pool of water and it was unclear how deep it was and whether it was toxic.
By the time Gcina escaped - on November 13 - there were four bodies underground in the area where he was. It is said that it is unknown how many more bodies there are.
Charles Mandla, who was previously a miner there, meanwhile said there is no viable link between where the miners were trapped and the Margaret shaft. Those who managed to escape through this shaft reported that they have been travelling underground for days in search of the shaft.
Pretoria News