While some food donations made it to Stilfontein, demands from underground are getting louder.
In addition to requests for food, the illegal miners refuse to resurface, caving in to the Government’s Vala Umgodi campaign, today, asked for ARV treatment to be sent down.
Not so. “ARVs are not Panado” is what Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health, said to that request.
But while Government Ministers have refused to send food and supplies to the illegal miners, civil society groups have taken Government to court, over the humanitarian crisis in Stilfontein.
4 days ago, the office of the Premier in the North West, said thus far, 1,187 illegal miners who left the underground shaft were arrested.
They are from Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and some from South Africa.
Now, a coalition of civil society organisations hosted by Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) and the Women Affected by Mining United in Action (WAMUA), said about the Stilfontein incident: “Xenophobic utterances of government officials in relation to the unfolding rescue operation in Stilfontein, North West, where artisanal miners are trapped without food, water and medication.”
MACUA will join civil society groups, Lawyers for Human Rights, General Industries Workers Union South Africa (Giwusa), the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), Equal Education, Action Aid South Africa, the South African Green Revolutionary Council (SAGRC) and the National Association of Artisanal Miners (NAAM), among others.
The coalition will launch an urgent application before the Pretoria North High Court regarding the humanitarian crisis unfolding at Stilfontein.
“We, as a collective, will also provide clarity on solutions which have previously been submitted to government and which can offer holistic and sustainable pathways to shared wealth as well as dealing with the growing phenomena of violent gangs” said Magnificent Mndebele of MACUA.
The police maintain the underground miners could simply climb out of the shaft, to freedom, that they are communicating from underground, sending a list of demands, but not once, did they ask to be assisted with getting out of the shaft.
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