Bodies lie on roadside after gunfight
Johannesburg - At least four men were reported dead on Thursday morning in the Daveyton area in what’s believed to be a territorial gang war among illegal miners.
There was a heavy police presence on the scene at an abandoned mine shaft near the mine dumps near the N12 freeway in that area.
The violent clash between at least two groups of illegal miners – known as zama zamas – took place at the mineshaft on Wednesday night.
The zama zamas break into abandoned mines or disused mining tunnels to remine those areas for gold.
After the shooting the miners apparently tried to flee but died from their injuries. One body was found just 1km from the shaft. Two others were about 1.5km away on the side of the road. The fourth body was about another 1km further away.
Captain Tsekiso Mofokeng of the Gauteng provincial police said a fight erupted between two groups of illegal miners on Wednesday night and a shoot-out ensued. It was only on Thursday morning that one of the illegal miners informed the police of what happened.
Picture: Dumisani Dube andTHE STAR
When police arrived, they found the four bodies.
While two bodies were visible on the side of the road, the others were hidden in the long grass not far from the mine dump.
Despite the fact that the bodies of the miners were scattered nearby, the surviving miners continued mining on Thursday morning, and police found them busy at the shaft when they arrived.
“We arrested five people and three of them were hospitalised due to their injuries,” Mofokeng said.
No weapons were found.
Charlene Bezuidenhout, spokeswoman for ER24, said all the dead miners had sustained multiple gunshot wounds.
Ekurhuleni Emergency Services spokesman William Ntladi said eight men were shot and all were believed to be illegal miners.
He said four of the men had been injured and taken to hospital, while the other four died. Ntladi said the crime scene had been handed over to the police for further investigation.
Mofokeng said police were investigating whether there could be more bodies in the shaft or if there were still other miners hiding underground.
It was also not known how old the dead men were or whether they were South African.
The police would also check how many times the men were shot.
Asked what kind of mineral was there which caused the two groups to turn against each other, Mofokeng said: “I don’t know, they said there’s gold there.”
In June last year at least 10 illegal miners died in clashes at the same abandoned mine.
This was also a clash between warring zama zama groups.
In that incident, some of the dead miners were shot in the head in what appeared to have been execution-style killings.
At the time, some of the miners reported that there had previously been at least 10 other similar killings in the past.
The Star
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