Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics

Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics
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An illegal miner rescued from an abandoned gold mine is assisted by paramedics and police officers in Stilfontein, South Africa, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics
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Metalliferous Mobile Rescue Winder operators look on as a cage is lifted from an abandoned gold shaft in Stilfontein on January 16, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 17 January 2025
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Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics

Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police’s ‘smoke them out’ tactics
  • Authorities had refused to help the miners who were working illegally in the abandoned mine
  • By the time they were compelled to act on orders of a court, dozens of miners have died
  • The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa and is a maze of tunnels and levels and has several shafts leading into it

STILFONTEIN, South Africa: The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday. Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation over their initial refusal to help the miners and instead “smoke them out” by cutting off their food supplies.
National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said that 78 bodies were retrieved in a court-ordered rescue operation, with 246 survivors also pulled out from deep underground since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies had been recovered before the rescue operation, without giving details.
Community groups launched their own rescue attempts when authorities said last year they would not help the hundreds of miners because they were “criminals.”
The miners are suspected to have died of starvation and dehydration, although no causes of death have been released.

South African authorities have been fiercely criticized for cutting off food and supplies to the miners in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine last year. That tactic to “smoke them out,” as described by a prominent Cabinet minister, was condemned by one of South Africa’s biggest trade unions.
Police and the mine owners were also accused of taking away ropes and dismantling a pulley system the miners used to enter the mine and send supplies down from the surface.
A court ordered authorities last year to allow food and water to be sent down to the miners, while another court ruling last week forced them to launch a rescue operation.
 

 

Many say the unfolding disaster underground was clear weeks ago, when community members sporadically pulled decomposing bodies out of the mine, some with notes attached pleading for food to be sent down.
“If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up,” said Johannes Qankase, a local community leader. “It is a disgrace for a constitutional democracy like ours. Somebody needs to account for what has happened here.”
South Africa’s second biggest political party, which is part of a government coalition, called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish an independent inquiry to find out “why the situation was allowed to get so badly out of hand.”
“The scale of the disaster underground at Buffelsfontein is rapidly proving to be as bad as feared,” the Democratic Alliance party said.
Authorities now believe that nearly 2,000 miners were working illegally in the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August last year. Most of them resurfaced on their own over the last few months, police said, and all the survivors have been arrested, even as some emerged this week badly emaciated and barely able to walk to waiting ambulances.
A convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to carry away the bodies.
Mathe said at least 13 children had also come out of the mine before the official rescue operation.




Community members and workers protest during the rescue operation to retrieve illegal miners from an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein on January 14, 2025. (AFP)

Police announced Wednesday that they were ending the operation after three days and believed no one else was underground. To be sure, a camera was sent down Thursday in a cage that was used to pull out survivors and bodies.
Two volunteer rescuers from the community had gone down in the small cage during the rescue operation to help miners as authorities refused to allow any official rescue personnel to go into the shaft because it was too dangerous.
“It has been a tough few days, there were many people who (we) saved but I still feel bad for those whose family members came out in body bags,” said Mandla Charles, one of the volunteer rescuers. “We did all we could.” The two volunteers were being offered trauma counselling, police said.
The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa and is a maze of tunnels and levels and has several shafts leading into it. The miners were working up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) underground in different groups.
Police have maintained that the miners were able to come out through several shafts but refused out of fear of being arrested. That’s been disputed by groups representing the miners, who say hundreds were trapped and left starving in dark and damp conditions with decomposing bodies around them.
Police Minister Senzo Mchunu denied in an interview with a national TV station that the police were responsible for any starvation and said they had allowed food to go down.
The initial police operation last year to force the miners to come out and give themselves up for arrest was part of a larger nationwide clampdown on illegal mining called Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole. Illegal mining is often in the news in South Africa and a major problem for authorities as large groups go into mines that have been shut down to extract leftover deposits.




Mametlwe Sebei (C), president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, joins community members and workers in a protest during the rescue operation to retrieve illegal miners from an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein on January 14, 2025. (AFP)

Gold-rich South Africa has an estimated 6,000 abandoned or closed mines.
The illicit miners, known as “zama zamas” — “hustlers” or “chancers” in the Zulu language — are usually armed and part of criminal syndicates, the government says, and they rob South Africa of more than $1 billion a year in gold deposits. They are often undocumented foreign nationals and authorities said that the vast majority who came out of the Buffelsfontein mine were from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and were in South Africa illegally.
Police said they seized gold, explosives, firearms and more than $2 million in cash from the miners and have defended their hard-line approach.
“By providing food, water and necessities to these illegal miners, it would be the police entertaining and allowing criminality to thrive,” Mathe said Wednesday.
But the South African Federation of Trade Unions questioned the government’s humanity and how it could “allow anyone — be they citizens or undocumented immigrants — to starve to death in the depths of the earth.”
While the police operation has been condemned by civic groups, the disaster hasn’t provoked a strong outpouring of anger across South Africa, where the mostly foreign zama zamas have long been considered unwelcome in a country that already struggles with high rates of violent crime.
 


Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees

Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees
Updated 13 February 2025
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Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees

Unions sue Trump, fearing mass firings of federal employees
Reuters

Five unions sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, seeking to block what they called the possible mass firing of hundreds of thousands of federal employees who resist pressure to accept buyouts.
In a complaint filed in Washington, D.C. federal court, the unions accused the White House and others in the Executive Branch of undermining Congress’ role in creating and funding a federal workforce, violating separation of powers principles.
The plaintiffs include the United Auto Workers, the National Treasury Employees Union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
Ten defendants were named, including Trump, the heads of agencies, the Department of Defense, Internal Revenue Service and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Last week, some unions sued the Trump administration to block the buyouts. On Monday, US District Judge George O’Toole in Boston kept in place a block of the buyout plan for federal employees, as he considers whether to impose it for a longer period of time.
The decision prevents Trump’s administration from implementing the buyout plan for now, giving a temporary victory to labor unions that have sued to stop it entirely.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, Trump ordered US agencies to work closely with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to identify federal employees who could be laid off.

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Updated 13 February 2025
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Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

KYIV: Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday accused each other of blocking the rotation of staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Moscow’s troops seized the facility — Europe’s largest nuclear power station — in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster by attacking the site.
Staff from the UN nuclear watchdog have been based there since September 2022 to monitor nuclear safety.
Fighting meant the IAEA staff could not be swapped out as part of a planned rotation on Wednesday — the second such delay in a week — both Kyiv and Moscow said, trading blame for the incident.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said in a statement: “Russia has once again deliberately disrupted the rotation of IAEA experts at the Zaporizhzhia plant.”
Inspectors spend around five weeks at the plant in stints before being swapped out in a complex procedure that involves traveling across the front line under supervision from the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
Tykhy accused Russia’s army of opening fire near where the planned rotation was taking place, saying Moscow’s goal was to force the IAEA team to travel through Russian-controlled territory and “violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Ukrainian army blocked the IAEA team from traveling to an agreed meeting point and were attacking the area with drones — at which point the Russian military withdrew its support team and returned to the station.
“On their return, the convoy carrying Russian military personnel and IAEA experts... came under attack by drone and mortar strikes,” Zakharova said in a statement.
The IAEA staff members were supposed to leave the station on February 5 in a rotation that was also delayed.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi was in both Ukraine and Russia last week, where he discussed the issue of rotations with officials from both countries.
In a statement, Grossi expressed his “deep regret” over the cancelation of the “carefully prepared and agreed rotation” due to excessive danger, calling the situation “completely unacceptable.”
“As a result of these extremely concerning events, I am in active consultation with both sides to guarantee the safety of our teams,” he said.


Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11

Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11
Updated 13 February 2025
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Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11

Suspect charged in killing of French schoolgirl, 11
  • The body of the girl, named as Louise, was found on Saturday close to her school
  • French police on Monday arrested a man aged 23 and his DNA was found on Louise’s hands, according to prosecutors

EVRY, France: The prime suspect in the murder of an 11-year-old French schoolgirl, who was found in the woods with multiple stab wounds, was charged after confessing to the crime, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
In a killing that shocked France, the body of the girl, named as Louise, was found on Saturday close to her school. She had been missing since leaving school in the suburban town of Epinay-sur-Orge about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Paris on Friday afternoon.
French police on Monday arrested a man aged 23 and his DNA was found on Louise’s hands, according to prosecutors.
“The main suspect admitted to the charges against him while in custody,” public prosecutor Gregoire Dulin said in a statement. Later Wednesday, the prosecutors’ office said he had been charged and that they would ask a judge to approve keeping him in detention.
The man’s parents and girlfriend, 23, had also been detained on suspicion of failing to report a crime, prosecutors said.
On Saturday, prosecutor Dulin had said that “there is no evidence to suggest that sexual violence was committed.”
French media described the suspect as a “video game addict,” and Dulin said on Wednesday that he may have been looking for “somebody to rob” in an attempt “to calm down” after an altercation during an online video game.
But he “panicked” when Louise began to scream, Dulin added.
Le Parisien daily had earlier pointed to “the possibility of a sadistic act.” Although he was not known to suffer from psychiatric disorders, the suspect could be “very violent” and was known to have repeatedly beaten his younger sister, the newspaper added.
The killing comes at a time when law and order, and in particular crime against children, are major issues in French politics and society. Speaking on Wednesday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau expressed “deepest sympathy” to Louise’s family.
The hard-line minister has vowed to tighten law and order in France.
“The whole establishment is in shock,” Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Tuesday.
Flowers and candles have been placed in front of the Andre Maurois school that Louise attended, as well as at the foot of a tree where the body was found.
A woman, who provided only her first name, Josephine, said she felt “upset all weekend.”
“I wasn’t well, it made me think of my granddaughter and my grandson,” she said in the town where the body was found on Tuesday. “We’re not at peace anywhere.”
“As soon as I was told about it, I said it’s the little girl with long hair,” she added.
A psychological support unit has been set up in Epinay-sur-Orge.


Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties

Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties
Updated 12 February 2025
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Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties

Turkiye’s president arrives in Pakistan’s capital on a 2-day visit to boost trade, economic ties
  • According to the ministry statement, HLSCC will provide “strategic direction to further strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries”

ISLAMABAD: Turkiye’s president, accompanied by a high-level delegation, arrived in Pakistan’s capital late Wednesday night on a two-day visit to discuss how to boost trade and economic ties between the nations, officials said.
When his plane landed at an airport near Islamabad, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan was received by his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and other senior government officials.
Erdogan is visiting Pakistan at the invitation of Sharif, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It said the Turkish president will jointly chair “the 7th Session of the Pakistan-Turkiye High Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC)” and the sides are expected to sign a number of agreements.
Erdogan will have bilateral meetings with Zardari and Sharif on Thursday.
According to the ministry statement, HLSCC will provide “strategic direction to further strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries.”
The statement said “Pakistan and Turkiye are bound by historic fraternal ties” and the visit by Erdogan “would serve to further deepen the brotherly relations and enhance multifaceted cooperation between the two countries”.
Pakistan, which has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent months, has deployed additional police officers and paramilitary forces to ensure the security of the Turkish leader and his delegation.
The visit comes hours after the US Embassy issued a travel advisory, citing a threat by Pakistani Taliban against the Faisal mosque in Islamabad and asked its citizens to avoid visits to the mosque and nearby areas until further notice.


US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia

US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia
Updated 12 February 2025
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US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia

US defense chief suggests Ukraine should abandon hope of winning all territory back from Russia
  • The statements by Trump and Hegseth offered the clearest look yet at how the new administration might try to end Europe’s largest land war in generations

BRUSSELS: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops.
Hours later, President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the Ukraine war. In a social media post that upended three years of US policy toward Ukraine, the Republican disclosed a call between the two leaders and said they would “work together, very closely.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said Zelensky and Trump also had a phone conversation.
Taken together, the statements by Trump and Hegseth offered the clearest look yet at how the new administration might try to end Europe’s largest land war in generations.
Hegseth’s warning to Ukraine that it should abandon its NATO bid and its push to reclaim all Russian-occupied territory signaled starkly to Kyiv that the administration’s view of a potential settlement is remarkably close to Moscow’s vision. Putin has declared that any peace deal must ensure that Ukraine gives up its NATO ambitions and withdraws its troops from the four regions that Russia annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured.
In sweeping remarks to allies eager to hear how much continued support Washington intends to provide to the Ukrainian government, Hegseth indicated that Trump is determined to get Europe to assume most of the financial and military responsibilities for the defense of Ukraine, including a possible peacekeeping force that would not include US troops.
Making the first trip to NATO by a member of the new Trump administration, the defense secretary also said the force should not have Article 5 protections, which could require the US or the 31 other nations of the NATO alliance to come to the aid of those forces if they are attacked by Russian forces.
The secretary’s comments were sure to dim Ukraine’s hopes of making itself whole again and to complicate talks later this week between Zelensky and US Vice President JD Vance and other senior American officials at a major security security conference in Munich.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said, as Kyiv’s backers gathered at NATO headquarters for a meeting to drum up more arms and ammunition for the war, which will soon enter its fourth year.
All 32 allies must agree for a country to join NATO, meaning that every member has a veto.
“Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” Hegseth said. “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.”
Other Western allies said the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO needs to stay on the table.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said NATO “is still the main guarantee of security for European countries.”
Asked about Trump’s phone call with Putin, Barrot said that abandoning Ukraine would “entrench the law of the strongest. It would be an invitation to all the world’s tyrants and despots to invade their neighbors with complete impunity.”
Hegseth insisted that NATO should play no role in any future military mission to police the peace in Ukraine and that any peacekeeping troops should not be covered by the part of NATO’s founding treaty that obliges all allies to come to the aid of any member under attack.
Article 5 has been activated only once, when European allies and Canada used it to help the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
Hegseth also said Europe “must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.” Ukraine currently relies equally on Europe and the US for about 30 percent each of its defense needs. The rest is produced by Ukraine itself.
Speaking with the allies of Ukraine known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Hegseth also insisted that Ukraine’s Western backers must abandon the “illusionary goal” of returning the country to its pre-2014 borders, before Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and seized parts of eastern Ukraine.
“Members of this contact group must meet the moment,” Hegseth said to the approximately 50 member countries that have provided support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
In his social media post, Trump said he and Putin “talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place” in the war.
Trump said the two leaders “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately.”
Zelensky said he had a “meaningful conversation” with Trump about “opportunities to achieve peace.” He said Trump shared details of his conversation with Putin.
“No one wants peace more than Ukraine,” Zelensky posted on X. “Together with the US, we are charting our next steps to stop Russian aggression and ensure a lasting, reliable peace. As President Trump said, let’s get it done. We agreed to maintain further contact and plan upcoming meetings.”
Talking to reporters after the NATO meeting, UK Defense Secretary John Healey said Hegseth’s words would not go unheeded.
“We heard his call for European nations to step up. We are, and we will,” Healey said.
Healey underlined that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. That is a process that will take some time.”
He also announced that Britain would provide Ukraine with a fresh $187 million “firepower package,” including drones, tanks and air-defense systems.
Over nearly three years, those 50 countries have collectively provided Ukraine with more than $126 billion in weapons and military assistance, including more than $66.5 billion from the US, which has served as the chair of the group since its creation.
Hegseth’s trip comes less than two weeks before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Most US allies fear that Putin won’t stop at Ukraine’s borders if he wins.
Trump has promised to end the war quickly. He’s complained that it’s costing American taxpayers too much money and suggested that Ukraine should pay for US support with access to its rare earth minerals, energy and other resources.
On Wednesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Kyiv to discuss a potential economic cooperation agreement with Ukraine that Trump is pushing as part of the foundation for a larger peace deal.