Post #210

🇿🇦South Africa's Mining Horror of 2024 [ Cost of Negligence ] 🌟At least 78 people died into the Stilfontein mine in South Africa in late 2024. It was not an accident like a mine collapse - it was a direct result of the government's Vala Umgodi operation, targeting illegal mining. Stilfontein is a closed gold mine in South Africa that has drawn informal miners from across the region, often called zama zamas, who search old shafts for leftover gold. When police arrived in 2024 to shut the operation, they blocked exits and branded everyone below a criminal, refusing to let food and water go down. People underground couldn't make it to the surface because the way up relied on a makeshift pulley system operated by people at the surface, who abandoned the top of the mineshaft when security officials arrived in August, leaving those in the mine stranded. ➡️Only in January 2025, 4 month into the siege, officials began a rescue operation, bringing up starved men with torn clothes and bare feet, along with rows of body bags. By that time at least 78 people were dead and some reports spoke of close to 100. We usually commend efforts to fight illegal mining - however, in this case the state itself acted like another gang that hunts for a cut of the resource, more interested in control than in the lives trapped around it. #CostOfNegligence Devils Below