South Africa: Process Underway to Identify Suspected Illegal Miners' Bodies

19 February 2025
South African Police Service (Pretoria)
press release

POTCHEFSTROOM — The process to identify 93 bodies of suspected illegal miners retrieved from Buffelsfontein Gold Mine' shaft No. 11 between Tuesday, 03 December 2024 and Wednesday 15 January 2025, is well underway. The process comes after conducting of post-mortems on all 93 bodies.

The breakdown of total bodies retrieved is as follows:

· Nine brought to the surface through a pulley system / rope by community volunteers between Tuesday, 03 December 2024 and Thursday, 09 January 2025.

· 78 brought to the surface between Monday, 13 and Wednesday, 15 January 2025 during the Mine Rescue Operation.

· Five suspected illegal miners who died while admitted to hospitals between Monday, 20 January and Wednesday, 12 February 2025. Of this number, four resurfaced at Buffelsfontein shaft No. 11 and one at Margaret Shaft.

· One that was brought to the surface at Margaret shaft.

In the investigation into the inquest dockets of the nine initial bodies, three were successfully identified and handed to family members; all from Mozambique.

As part of investigations, DNA samples were obtained from 78 bodies retrieved during the Mine Rescue Operation. Furthermore, 54 fingerprints were obtained from 78 bodies for comparison. This process resulted in the identification of 10 bodies through previous arrests in the country. The nationalities of the identified deceased are as follows:

· Mozambique: 7

· Zimbabwe: 1

· Lesotho: 1

· South Africa: 1

In an effort to get more identifications, members of the public and the community who do not know where their next of kin are and they know or suspect that they were working in and around Khuma / Stilfontein as zama zamas and have not seen or heard from them for some time, were requested to get into contact with the investigation team at Stilfontein Police Station on specific days between 04 and 14 February 2025. This led to obtaining of 45 control samples. The nationalities of the next of kin from whom samples were taken are as follows:

· Mozambique: 18

· Lesotho: 6

· Zimbabwe: 8

· South Africa: 12

· Botswana: 1

The working relationship among the abovementioned countries continues in an attempt to identify the bodies.

For enquiries regarding the identification process, Colonel Francois Jacobs can be contacted at 082 373 8216.

Read the original article on SAPS.

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