Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. Mine rescue workers host up a cage that was used to rescue trapped ...

Rescuers use a Metalliferous Mobile Rescue Winder during a rescue operation to retrieve illegal miners from an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein on January 14, 2025. Picture: Christian Velcich ...

STILFONTEIN, South Africa. — Dozens of men sat and lay together in small caves, some so shallow they couldn’t stand up. The air was wet and stuffy, and wracking coughs echoed in the confined ...

Starvation’ was the terminology used by the police – it was the goal, and the ghastly results are now emerging from the depths.

The crisis at a disused gold mine in Stilfontein, North West, which has dragged on for months, has tested the ability of the government to curb illegal mining through Operation Vala Umgodi.

In South Africa, a government crackdown on an illegal gold mine led to a state siege, causing 78 deaths. Volunteers ...

Last week, rescuers recovered 78 bodies and 246 survivors — many of them weak and emaciated — from the Buffelsfontein mine in Stilfontein, in South Africa’s North West province, where police ...

Shaft 11 of the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein Mine. Picture: @newstruthliz/AP A total of 51 dead bodies have been recovered from the abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein in the past two days.

The South African government faces criticism over the deaths of at least 60 unlicenced miners trapped during a police siege at a Stilfontein gold mine. As the rescue mission continues, 132 survivors ...