While rescue teams worked to retrieve illegal miners trapped in the Buffelsfontein gold mine just outside Stilfontein, anxious relatives watched from the sidelines as miners and corpses were brought out of the abandoned shaft.
'Yesterday, I heard on the news that corpses were brought out of the mine," Matumelo (not her real name) told Daily Maverick during day two of the rescue operation to retrieve miners trapped in the Buffelsfontein gold mine outside Stilfontein in North West. "Now, the only thing I am asking myself is: Is the father of my child still alive?"
Finding refuge from the sweltering heat under the shade of a tree, Matumelo looked towards the crane that had been set up to rescue the miners, contemplating what had become of her partner. The 26-year-old had not heard from him since August last year when police descended on the mine and closed off access to the abandoned shaft as part of Operation Vala Umgodi.
"I'm worried about him. He has been in the shaft for months now. I have given birth, and my child is two months old. She doesn't even know her father," said the young mother.
Matumelo's fears summed up the general feeling of the angry and anxious Stilfontein residents who gathered outside the cordoned-off rescue site, anxiously waiting as miners -- alive and dead --...