An undetermined number of illegal miners, who are believed to have gone underground before the intensification of the Vala Umgodi Operations, remain unaccounted for.

Affected families in Khuma near Stilfontein in North West say, while the community volunteers and the state-led mine rescue initiatives resulted in the retrieval of 278 illegal miners and 87 bodies, many bodies are reportedly still scattered in Shaft 10.

Community leader Johannes Qankase elaborates, “From the information that we got from the volunteers that were sent underground when the rescue people came, it was that there are still bodies underground, more especially in the other shaft whereby some of them were trying to resurface through the gates but some of them lost their grip in numbers.”

As much as we are working with the community as community leaders, there are some names that are brought to us that there are some people that are not on the list. We got the list from police for your information; all the people who have resurfaced.”

Stilfontein Mine | Family still hopeful brother will resurface

Qankase says the process of identifying the deceased has made matters more complicated.

“They said no they will not be allowed to go individually. They must make an appointment in a group so that they can go and identify. But now the situation we find ourselves in, some of the community members and the families are afraid. They have told us they are afraid to go and identify. I don’t know the reasons being what. But at the end of the day if ever some they want to go and identify their loved ones, must they wait for other people to come so that they go in a group?

Zinzi Tom, whose brother Ayanda Tom remains unaccounted for since going underground in July 2024 through the notorious shaft 11 in Stilfontein, says she is still holding on to hope that her family will see him again.

“Somebody said that he saw my brother two weeks back. My brother was underground, but he was not in a good condition at all. He told them ‘I’m going to try to retrieve myself… because I can’t die underground’. That’s the last time that they saw him. Now I think I will mark it three weeks… even now I’m not ok. but I have this hope that my brother is still alive because in shaft 10 the people they retrieved they never gave us names,” says Tom.