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Illegal miners in South Africa. (Screenshot from VICE News documentary, via You Tube)
South Africa’s Johannesburg was built on a vast gold reef, which today is home to several deserted mines that have attracted illegal miners and criminal gangs who fight to control the abandoned shafts.
Armed confrontation between opposite groups trying to get a hold of whatever gold is left in the area, however, has intensified in the last few years, according to a special report published by AFP:
“The kids who are four years old know the sound of the gun,” said Springs resident Samson Jerry Aphane, holding a spent bullet in his hand as proof of the deteriorating situation.
“They know they have to lie down.”
Weak gold prices and the consequent decline of the sector, paired with unemployment, illegal migration, and poverty, have all contributed to the growth of this criminal activity, a source of informal employment to between 8,000 and 30,000 illegal miners across the country.
Efforts to tackle the problem have, so far, been futile, especially as the number of deserted mines grows. The country is believed to have approximately 6,000 abandoned mines and at least 1.6 million people living in informal settlements around Johannesburg, many of them on or near mine waste sites.
According to a 2011 study titled Ecologies of Gold, the locals’ health has already began seeing the impacts of permanent dust and the hundreds of tonnes of mine waste dumped around the Witwatersrand Basin during almost 130 years of gold mining.
3 Comments
John Doe
I worked there in the 1970s, %,000 mines, really? Maybe if you count every little dog hole somewhere out in the bush. Maybe 600 of any real size counting all minerals and 60 substantial mines in the Rand. Too, at any depth most will be flooded with water or CO2 thus inaccessible to gangs. A trove of Gold was found at one mine’s refinery upon decommissioning when I was there. That luck might be repeated at some very early site, perhaps from the days of stamp mills.
Mark Harder
Perhaps they are digging in the old tailings? Here in the US, metal detectorists and others have had some luck weeding through old piles for gold.
Witte Boer
6,000 abandoned gold mines in South Africa? I would really like to see the list of mines they refer to. I saw this number quoted by government officials too and we know how they can stretch the truth.