Trapped emaciated miners resort to cannibalism after police blocked their food supply in South Africa

Wednesday, January 29, 2025 - Survivors of a mining disaster in South Africa claimed some of their colleagues “resorted to cannibalism” as their only means of staying alive after police blocked their food and water.

In August last year, 2024, police in South Africa, began attempting to force out illegal miners who make a living by trespassing in old gold mines to retrieve what is left.

To force them out of the old Buffelsfontein Gold Mine, near Stilfontein in the North West province, police blocked their food and water source.

Trapped nearly a mile under the earth, the illegal miners were forced to find ways of preventing death from hunger, including eating human flesh, two of the survivors revealed.

“They cut parts of legs, arms, and ribs for sustenance. They decided it was their only remaining option for survival,” one unnamed man told The Telegraph.

He claimed he and the second survivor did not take part, instead, they ate cockroaches to stay alive after the food supply ran out.

The pair entered the shaft in July 2024 before making their way to the surface in December 2024.

The two mining survivors explained how “food, medicine, alcohol and beverages were once plentiful,” as they made £400 per month, but things took a turn for the worse as officials tried to crack down on their activities.

Authorities had claimed the miners were able to make their way out but they chose not to because they wanted to avoid arrest and deportation.

As months went on and supplies were rationed, locals claimed the remaining people in the mine were either trapped or too weak to get out. Courts then decided to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered as well as a mining rescue company.

The images of emaciated survivors and body bags being dragged to the surface have led to police accusations of a “massacre”, as the country’s second-largest trade union federation called the incident “one of the most horrific displays of state wilful negligence in recent history”.

However, Gwede Mantashehe, the mining minister, said this week: “If you go to a dangerous place such as a neglected mine and stay there for about three months, starving yourself to death, how does that become the responsibility of the state?”

Watch the video of emaciated miners trapped underground below.

Trapped miners 'resorted to cannibalism' after authorities cut off food supply pic.twitter.com/JOVtOYW3n8

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) January 28, 2025