Well, this is one way to handle criminals, I guess.
The South African government is preventing hundreds, possibly thousands, of miners underground from receiving food and necessities.
Because the mine was illegal.
Several hundred people are believed to be in an illegal mine in South Africa with the government refusing to help them in a bid to force them to come to the surface.
Reports varied as to how many miners were in the abandoned gold mine in the North West province. North West police spokesperson Sabata Mokgwabone told The Associated Press that three miners who had come to the surface indicated that up to 4,000 miners could be underground. Other police reports said the number in the mine was in the hundreds.
So, essentially we have a bunch of illegal workers hiding out underground, illegally working shuttered gold mines. And the government of South Africa is going to starve them out so that they can arrest the workers and shut down the mine.
What we've got here is a little bit of old-fashioned siege warfare.
Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said on Wednesday that no help would be given to the illegal miners.
'We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out,' she said.
The miners aren't trapped. They can leave anytime. But if they do leave they will be arrested.
So far, nearly 1,000 have left with varying reports that hundreds and up to 4,000 are still underground.
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