South African communities terrorized by gold mining gangs May 16, 2024
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- May 15, 2024
- 4 min read
By AFP - Agence France Presse
South African communities terrorized by gold mining gangs
Walking between the corrugated iron shacks of the informal settlement west of Johannesburg that she calls home, Lutho Makheyi points to the ditches filled with dirty rainwater that pierce the unpaved streets.
These are the scars left by illegal gold mining, a business she blames for the high levels of violent crime haunting South Africa ahead of the fiercest general election in decades.
“You never know when a shot might be fired or if you will be raped,” said Makheyi, 21, adding that she hoped the vote would bring change.
“You never know if you'll be alive tomorrow.”
The Johannesburg region is dotted with slag heaps, shafts, and deep trenches left by generations of miners, whose arrival in a gold rush in the 1880s led to the birth of the city.
Thousands of illegal miners, commonly known as “zama zamas” - “those who try” in the Zulu language - operate in the area, scavenging, recycling, and reworking the remains of gold ore.
Access to the old mines is usually controlled by gangs who sometimes fight for control.
Makheyi's informal settlement, Zamimpilo, sits on top of one of these deposits.
- 'Duck for cover'.
There, ordinary families on years-long waiting lists for government housing live side by side with miners, both groups in constant fear for their lives.
Nobukho Novokoza said that her 17-month-old daughter “knows when to take cover if there is gunfire”.
“‘Mommy, get down,’” she says when she hears the bangs, according to her mother.
Novokoza, 38, is among the many South Africans who have lost faith in politics.
On May 29, she will not vote, she said.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) is credited with winning freedom for all South Africans after decades of apartheid and lifting millions of people out of extreme poverty.
But 30 years after the country's first democratic elections, many voters are fed up with high unemployment, inequality, and rampant crime.
The ANC is expected to lose its absolute parliamentary majority for the first time.
In Zamimpilo, large pigs feed on waste at a central dumping site, while children play nearby.
Residents watch as a miner with a head flashlight passes by covered in sand.
Illegal mines are seen as a hotbed of crime in a country where more than 80 people are murdered every day.
In 2022, the brutal gang rape of eight women who were filming a music video near a mining site shocked the nation.
The government has vowed to wage war against illegal miners, who, according to the authorities, are usually foreigners.
Thousands of people have been arrested since a crackdown last year.
When AFP visited Zamimpilo, a raid was underway, but residents said that most of the Zama Zamas had been warned.
The police were casually strolling through the settlement.
The operation followed a visit by the police minister at the end of last year after several people were killed in an alleged gangland shootout.
“They sent police here for three months, but still illegal mining continued... under their noses,” said Nokuzola Qwayede, 42, a community leader from Zamimpilo. “Nothing has been done.”
The authorities say there are more than 6,000 abandoned and ownerless mines in South Africa.
The government has pledged to rehabilitate them and close abandoned shafts.
But experts say corruption makes this more difficult.
“Our... intelligence says that some politicians are running the show,” said Dale McKinley, a senior research fellow at the University of Johannesburg's Development Studies department.
Close to Zamimpilo is Riverlea, a working-class suburb.
There, religious leader Anthony Sherman would like Zamimpilo to disappear completely.
Men with wide-brimmed hats and sleek cars parked near wells while appearing to collect goods or money are a common sight, he said.
“The complete solution will be the removal of Zamimpilo,” he said. “We will immediately eliminate race battles” and “protect the people”.
- Mental scars
However, some illegal miners say they also live in fear, with gangs adding to the dangers of an infamous and dangerous job.
“So many people die in front of me... I'm scared,” said a miner who preferred not to give his real name and who AFP agreed to call Thobani Mdunge.
Sporting a torn and dirty blue jacket and sweatpants, with a body full of scars and an open wound on his leg, he had just resurfaced after a week to restock on food.
Mining “disturbs my mental health”, he said.
Gangs sometimes hold miners hostage underground and rob them.
Mdunge has to pay protection money to criminals who kill those who do nothing.
However, with few prospects of legal employment, he has no intention of giving up.
Recently, he and his colleagues unearthed gold worth R40,000 (about US$2,100) - a hefty sum for some.
In South Africa, more than three million people are classified as “multidimensionally poor”, without access to adequate health, education, water, and sanitation.
“For the time being, I'm not going to stop this work,” shrugged Mdunge.
By Zama LUTHULI
zam/ub/dc/cw
Comments