ZIMBABWEAN authorities in South Africa are hesitant to confront the government about its role in the deaths of 20 Zimbabweans at the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine in Stilfontein.
Zimbabwean nationals are among over 80 bodies recovered from the mine’s shaft after over four months underground.
Concerns have been raised over the South African government’s role in the death of the illegal miners after police officers cut supplies of essentials such as food and medicine.
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said, “we will smoke them out”, supporting the decision to shut food supplies to the miners.
It took the Pretoria High Court for community members and charitable organisations to provide rescue efforts and food to the miners trapped underground.
Survivors from the mine reportedly lived off cockroaches and human flesh and it is believed the deceased may have succumbed to hunger while trapped underground.
An official at the Zimbabwean Embassy in South Africa said the embassy is leaving the South African government to address the “massacre” of the miners.
“This issue was really for South African authorities to handle through their policies, administrative processes and through their various agencies.
“As you are aware it became an issue of litigation where various groups went to court in order to achieve a certain resolution of the matter. It is the court that decided that the government must provide the rescue services to get these miners out of the shafts. For Zimbabwe we have no role to play this is purely a matter that is within the sovereign government of South Africa to manage,” said the source.
The disaster sparked widespread criticism of the South African government, with accusations of human rights violations.
Minister of Mines Gwede Mantashe shrugged off criticism saying the government can not be held responsible for the illegal miners’ deaths.
Harare has remained silent on the issue although most of the miners were Zimbabwean nationals.
The Zimbabwean Embassy has not been informed on the causes of death of its nationals.
“That I think it is something the police If indeed they do any autopsy if it is even possible to do that, I do not know the state of the bodies or whether they were in such a state to enable them to do an autopsy but we do not have that information,” said the source. – (New Zimbabwe)
