Lured by the promise of a salary almost three times what he earned as a cook, a 35-year-old North West man went underground last year to become a zama zama in Stilfontein — and almost died.
During the five months he spent down the dark, hot mine, working as a rope-puller, he lost count of the number of people he watched die.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the man — who has a partner and a two-year-old son — told the Sunday Times he now wants nothing to do with illegal mining and would “rather die from poverty than go back underground as a zama zama”.
The man, who grew up near the mine in the small township of Khuma, said he had struggled to make ends meet on his R3,200 a month salary from a takeaway shop in Klerksdorp. He was often broke as the mother of his child is unemployed.
“I was told that as a rope-puller I would earn R9,000 a month, paid when I leave the shaft. I was desperate for money so I took up the offer,” he said.
He is one of 34 men who were rescued by the community in early December as food began running desperately short after police intensified Operation Vala Umgodi (close the hole) to clamp down on illegal mining.
The man said the zama zama who recruited him seemed to live comfortably and drove a car, and also worked as a rope-puller.
This person was his only contact underground, where hundreds of men worked in a maze of tunnels on 20 levels. The zama zamas were grouped in units, each with its own boss.
“I don’t even know the man I worked for, the only person I dealt with was my recruiter,” the man said. “He must surely know who our boss was but there was never even a mention of who we were working for.”
Even his wages came via his recruiter, he said.
Dozens of men he had worked with in shaft 11 died in front of him, mainly due to starvation. He watched the corpses gradually decompose, exposing the skeletons beneath the flesh.
Death was a constant presence. The zama zamas had no proper personal protective equipment, climbing tools or safety harnesses. The ventilation shaft’s smooth concrete walls were deadly for miners moving between levels.
A slip or bad grip on the rope could mean falling to your death in the deep sump of acid water at the bottom of the shaft — 2.8km below the surface.
One of the miners said jokingly, ‘We shouldn’t kill these cockroaches, what if we need them one day.’ And he was right.
— Anonymous zama zama
“If you fall into the chaf [sump] you’ll drown and your body will never ever be recovered,” the former zama zama said.
The miners used the sump to dispose of rubbish and excrement.
They had access to a “shop” underground, where they could buy food and liquor at inflated prices.
Another miner, who also did not want to be identified, said: “Even going to the shop from other levels was a big risk and a challenge as some levels are not connected by stairways. You still need to use the rope to move up and down the shaft between levels.”
Both men resurfaced last month without being noticed by police or arrested. They said having “stronger arms” and being physically tough helped them survive.
“Some parts of the tunnels look scary and you may need to rest maybe nine times before getting to the shop,” the second man said.
One of the worst aspects of remaining underground was the growing number of corpses, he said.
“The smell of rotting human bodies is something I won't forget. You’d be speaking to someone who would be complaining about being hungry and thirsty, and two hours later you say something to them and you find that they’re dead.”
The two men described an underground hierarchy in which those who did the digging and mining at the lowest levels were mainly foreigners, the majority from Mozambique. Very few South Africans did this work.
Those at higher levels were rope-pullers or were involved in processing the gold. Others were tasked with distributing food or working at the shop.
“The air we breathed was not healthy, it was hot and dense,” one of the men said. “Yet we were not at the deeper levels; the deeper you go down, the more difficult it becomes to breathe.”
Another peril was getting lost in the maze of interconnected tunnels.
The two men said hunger drove them to the surface. In August the supply of food slowed drastically, coming in dribs and drabs, sometimes sent down by members of the community in the early hours before dawn.
“There was a time where we were surviving on just tea and brown sugar, then I realised there was a problem,” one said.
The gold that was dug out at the deepest levels was lifted by the rope system to level 4, a “base station” about 600m from the surface.
“People permanently work there to receive those going down into the shaft and to receive the stock [gold] coming up from below,” he said.
The two men said they had been stationed in a large hall-like space at level 6 of shaft 11, about 500m deeper than level 4, operating the rope system.
They said gold dust was the main currency for buying goods from the shop deep underground on level 10.
“The gold that fills the space on the top of a Colgate [toothpaste] cap is worth R3,000 underground, although the shop does not give change,” one said. The minimum price for anything — including a loaf of bread, a 2l bottle of cool drink, a can of pilchards or a box of Ultramel — was R100.
A 5kg bag of maize meal cost R5,000 (under R80 in most shops). For R1,000 miners could buy a 750ml bottle of Amarula (about R170 on the surface), a 750ml bottle of Firstwatch whisky (normal price less than R200), or four cans of Heineken or Castle Lite.
“Even though the alcohol was not cold, people bought it.”
The shop area and the base station were well-lit as they had petrol generators.
One of the men said when he arrived underground in July last year, cockroaches were a problem.
“One of the miners said jokingly, ‘We shouldn’t kill these cockroaches, what if we need them one day.’ And he was right. When we experienced food shortages, many started eating the cockroaches just to get something into their stomachs,” he said.
The Sunday Times has learnt those who called the shots underground, and controlled the distribution of food, were usually from Lesotho and they favoured their fellow-citizens.
Zama zamas of other nationalities were given instant porridge mixed with water in buckets. They received just one cup a day.
Mandla Charles, 38, a former zama zama who also resurfaced from Stilfontein in December, went back down the shaft this week to help with the rescue effort — and the retrieval of bodies.
“A dead body cannot stand on its own in the cage so we had to pile them up in a standing position [to fit more into the cage], which meant closely holding on to a decomposing body,” he said.
“Even now I can still smell it.”
Charles said what he had seen underground would remain etched in his memory.
“Had police listened to us earlier, we wouldn’t have had so many people dying. I volunteered to help with the retrieval and rescue of miners because I know what happens underground,” he said.
Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said Operation Vala Umgodi had been a success as more than 17,000 people had been arrested nationwide since December 2023, with 399 illegal firearms and 11,000 rounds of ammunition confiscated.
“In the North West alone, including Stilfontein, R52m in cash has been recovered from illegal miners,” Mathe said.
She said police were taking statements and interrogating those arrested at Stilfontein. “Those who were ringleaders, running operations underground [in Stilfontein], have been arrested.”
Mathe said she could not provide names for those arrested, but the Sunday Times has learnt that three of the ringleaders went by the nicknames Ntate Mafutha, Tiger and Kgomo.
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