South African police said on Sunday that 225 illegal miners had been arrested after being forced out of an abandoned mine shaft due to a lack of food and water.
The miners, known locally as “zama zamas” (“those who try” in Zulu), resurfaced from a mine in Orkney, a gold mining town in the Klerksdorp district of North West Province.
A police spokesperson told AFP on Sunday that the men had been arrested.
They were forced out “as a result of starvation and dehydration”, police said, after security agencies blocked routes used by their accomplices to deliver food and water to the mine.
Police added that they were still monitoring the abandoned mine shafts “as more and more illegal miners resurface”.
“These 225 illegal miners are part of others believed to be hundreds if not a thousand illegal miners who are stuck underground,” a statement issued late on Saturday said.
