South Africa’s illegal mining industry: Gang-controlled ‘towns’ grow underground

Along with about 600 different males, Ndumiso lives and works in a small gang-controlled “town” – full with markets and a crimson mild district – that has grown up deep underground at a disused gold mine in South Africa.

Ndumiso instructed the BBC that after being laid off by a giant mining agency, he determined to affix the gang in its underground world to turn out to be what is named a “zama zama”, an unlawful miner.

He digs for the dear steel and surfaces each three months or so to promote it on the black marketplace for an enormous revenue, incomes greater than he ever did earlier than – although the dangers now are far larger.

“The underground life is ruthless. Many do not make it out alive,” mentioned the 52-year-old, who spoke to the BBC given that his actual identify was not used as he feared reprisals.

“In one level of the shaft there are bodies and skeletons. We call that the zama-zama graveyard,” he mentioned.

But for individuals who survive, like Ndumiso, the job might be profitable.

While he sleeps on sandbags after back-breaking days underground, his household lives in a home he has purchased in a township of the primary metropolis, Johannesburg.

He made money funds of 130,000 rand (about $7,000; £5,600) for the one-bedroom home, which he has now prolonged to incorporate one other three bedrooms, he mentioned.

An unlawful miner for about eight years, Ndumiso has managed to ship his three kids to fee-paying colleges – one in all whom is now in college.

“I have to provide for my wife and children and this is the only way I know,” he mentioned, including that he most popular to toil underground somewhat than including to the excessive crime fee by turning into a car-hijacker or robber, after spending a few years looking for authorized work.

His present job is at a mine within the small city of Stilfontein, round 90 miles (145km) south-west of Johannesburg, which is on the centre of global attention after a authorities minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, promised to “smoke out” the a whole lot of miners who had been underground there, with the safety forces stopping meals and water from being despatched down.

“Criminals are not to be helped. Criminals are to be persecuted,” Ntshavheni mentioned.

A marketing campaign group, The Society for the Protection of Our Constitution, has launched a court docket case to demand entry to the mineshaft, which police say is about 2km (1.2 miles) deep.

The court docket has given an interim ruling, stating that meals and different necessities may very well be delivered to the miners.

Ndumiso works at a special shaft on the mine, and surfaced final month, earlier than the present stand-off.

He is now ready to see how the scenario unfolds, earlier than deciding whether or not to return.

The stand-off follows a authorities resolution to crack down on an trade that has spiralled uncontrolled, with mafia-like gangs operating it.

“The country has been grappling with the scourge of illegal mining for many years, and mining communities bore the brunt of peripheral criminal activities such as rape, robbing and damage to public infrastructure, among others,” mentioned Mikateko Mahlaule, chairman of the parliamentary committee on mineral assets.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned the mine was a “crime scene”, however police had been negotiating with the miners to finish the stand-off, somewhat than taking place to arrest them.

“Law-enforcement authorities have information that some of the miners may be heavily armed. It is well-established that illegal miners are recruited by criminal gangs and form part of wider organised crime syndicates,” he added.

Ndumiso was amongst a whole lot of 1000’s of employees – each locals and nationals of neighbouring states like Lesotho – who’ve been retrenched as South Africa’s mining trade has gone into decline over the past three many years. Many of those have gone on to turn out to be “zama zamas” on the deserted mines.

South Africa-based Benchmark Foundation researcher David van Wyk, who has studied the trade, mentioned there have been about 6,000 deserted mines within the nation.

“While they are not profitable for large-scale industrial mining, they are profitable for small-scaling mining,” he instructed the BBC Focus on Africa podcast.

Ndumiso mentioned he used to work as a drill operator, incomes lower than $220 (£175) a month, for a gold-mining firm till he was laid off in 1996.

After struggling for the following 20 years to discover a full-time job due to South Africa’s crushingly excessive unemployment fee, he mentioned he determined to turn out to be an unlawful miner.

There are tens of 1000’s of unlawful miners in South Africa, with Mr Van Wyk saying they quantity about 36,000 alone in Gauteng province – the nation’s financial heartland, the place gold was first found within the nineteenth Century.

“Zama zamas will often spend months underground without surfacing and depend heavily on outside support for food and other necessities. It is arduous and dangerous work,” mentioned a report by marketing campaign group Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.

“Some carry pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves from rival gangs of miners,” it added.

Ndumiso instructed the BBC that he did personal a pistol, however he additionally paid his gang a month-to-month “protection fee” of about $8.

Its closely armed guards fend off threats, particularly from Lesotho gangs reputed to have extra deadly firepower, he mentioned.

Under the 24-hour safety of the gang, Ndumiso mentioned he used dynamite for rock-blasting and rudimentary instruments reminiscent of a choose axe, spade and chisel to search out gold.

Most of what he finds he provides to the gang chief, who pays him a minimal of $1,100 each two weeks. He mentioned he was in a position to hold some gold, which he sells on the black market to prime up his earnings.

He was among the many lucky miners to have such an association, he mentioned – explaining that others had been kidnapped and brought to the shaft to work like slave labourers, receiving no cost or gold.

Ndumiso mentioned he usually stayed underground for about three months at a time, after which got here up for 2 to 4 weeks to spend time along with his household and promote his gold, earlier than going again into the deep pits.

“I look forward to sleeping on my bed and eating home-cooked meals. Breathing in fresh air is an amazingly powerful feeling.”

Ndumiso doesn’t come out extra typically in case he loses his digging spot, however after three months it will get an excessive amount of to stay underground.

He recalled that when when he reached the floor: “I was so blinded by the sunlight that I thought I had gone blind.”

His pores and skin had additionally turn out to be so pale that his spouse took him for a medical check-up: “I was honest with the doctor about where I lived. He did not say anything, and just treated me. He gave me vitamins.”

Above floor Ndumiso doesn’t simply loosen up. He additionally works with different unlawful miners as ore-bearing rocks introduced up from under are blasted and crushed into high quality powder.

This is then “washed” by his group at a makeshift plant to separate the gold utilizing harmful chemical compounds like mercury and sodium cyanide.

Ndumiso mentioned he then sells his share of the gold – one gram for $55, lower than the official price of about $77.

He mentioned he has a ready-made purchaser, whom he contacts through WhatsApp.

“The first time I met him I did not trust him so I told him to meet me in the car park of a police station. I knew I would be safe there.

“Now we meet in any automobile park. We have a scale. We weigh the gold on the spot. I then hand it to over to him, and he pays me in money,” he said, pointing out that he walks away with between $3,800 and $5,500.

He gets this amount every three months, meaning his average annual income is between $15,500 and $22,000 – far more than the $2,700 he earned as a legally employed miner.

Ndumiso said the gang leaders earned far more, but he did not know how much.

As for the buyer of his gold, Ndumiso said he did not know anything about him, except that he was a white man in an illegal industry that involves people of different races and classes.

This makes it difficult to clamp down on the criminal networks, with Mr Van Wyk saying the government was targeting miners – but not the “kingpins residing within the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg and Cape Town”.

Mr Ramaphosa said that illegal mining was costing “our financial system billions of rands in misplaced export earnings, royalties and taxes”, and the government would continue to work with mining firms “to make sure they take accountability for rehabilitating or closing mines which can be not operational”.

Mr Van Wyk told the BBC Focus on Africa podcast that the government would worsen South Africa’s economic crisis if it clamped down on the “zama zamas”.

“There needs to be a coverage to decriminalise their operations, to higher organise them and to control them,” he added.

When Ndumiso goes back underground to work, he takes with him cartons of canned food to avoid paying the exorbitant prices at the “markets” that exist there.

Apart from food, basic items – like cigarettes, torches, batteries – and mining tools were sold there, he said.

This suggests that a community – or a small town – had developed underground over the years, with Ndumiso saying there was even a red light district, with sex workers brought underground by the gangs.

Ndumiso said the mine where he worked was made up of several levels, and a labyrinth of tunnels that connected to each other.

“They are like highways, with indicators painted to provide instructions to completely different locations and ranges – like the extent that we use as the bathroom, or the extent that we name the zama-zama graveyard,” he mentioned.

“Some are killed by rival gang members; others die throughout rockfalls and are crushed by large boulders. I misplaced a buddy after he was robbed of his gold and shot within the head.”

Although life underground is perilous, it is a risk that thousands like Ndumiso are willing to take, as they say the alternative is to live and die poor in a nation where the unemployment rate stands at more than 30%.