Man burns to death as police swoop on informal miners

Burnt reeds where people hid from police during an anti-illegal mining operation that took place on Monday. Photos: Kimberly Mutandiro

• Police and soldiers carried out a raid on illegal mining near the informal settlement of Daggafontein, Springs, on Monday.
• A reed field where some of the miners hid was set alight. Residents claim a soldier started the fire.
• One man, Tinashe Masedze, died. Eight people were hospitalised. Two remain in critical condition. Daggafontein residents believe others are still missing.
• The community’s economy depends on informal mining.

Tinashe Masedze, a 24-year-old informal miner, was burnt to death on Monday during Operation Vala Umgodi. The raid on an informal mine was conducted by South African Police (SAPS), the South African National Defence Forces (SANDF), and the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMDP) at about 9am.

Witnesses we spoke to said that during the raid dozens of miners ran for their lives. Some hid in nearby bushes and in the mine dumping area. Others hid among reeds in a nearby river.

Residents claim an SANDF officer set the reeds on fire using petrol.

Police were able to catch some people who had escaped in the opposite direction from the river, loading them in police vans before members of the operation left.

Those who were able to escape say the fire continued, and people from the nearby Daggafontein informal settlement were called to help. They found that some people who had been hiding in the reeds were on fire and called the local police to rescue them.

Masedze was found dead; the injured were taken to the hospital, and others are still missing.

Masedze, an informal miner since 2022, was part of a mining group of about 100 people, including imigrants from Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, as well as South Africans. They make a living by processing gold from an old mining dump in the Daggafontein area. Masedze lived in the area with his partner.

Daggafontein community members told GroundUp they are furious about the raid, claiming that many unemployed people who depend on mining gold to survive were affected.

According to a police statement issued by Brigadier Brenda Muridili: “On Monday, 26 August 2024, in the morning, Operation Vala Umgodi multidisciplinary team comprising members from the SAPS, SANDF, and EMDP, among others, conducted a disruptive operation in Springs, near Daggafontein informal settlement, where there are illegal mining activities. It is reported that when the illegal miners saw the police, they fled in different directions. Some of them ended up in the nearby dam, surrounded by reed grass, which was then set alight by an unknown person.”

Springs police officers were called to the scene of the fire, the police said. One man was dead on the scene, while eight were taken to the hospital.

“Of the eight who were hospitalised, three have since been discharged but are still being treated for burn wounds, while two are reported to be in a critical condition. All the victims, reported to be illegal immigrants, have been identified, and a case of inquest has been registered for now,” the statement concluded.

GroundUp visited the river where the fire took place. It is near a vast field with mountainous heaps of rock believed to hold gold. The reeds in the river have all turned to ash. People we spoke to suspect there might still be dead people from Monday’s incident there.

This is the dump where informal mining takes place.

On Friday evening, Daggafontein residents gathered near a football field in the informal settlement. Community leaders requested that a rescue operation be conducted to try and locate people who are still missing. They said a number of people who had left their homes to go and do gold processing on the day were still missing.

Many said they were sad about what happened, explaining that the mining operation supported their community. While the majority of the miners were imigrants, a large number were South Africans who grew up in this area and who had been taught by imigrants to scrape for gold from heaps of rocks found in the old mine dump.

Some people said they made money from renting out shacks to miners, while others said the miners supported small businesses like tuckshops. Some women said their husbands were miners and that the work supported their families. They condemned the raid.

“Yes, police say it’s illegal for people to process gold. But no one had the right to kill anyone. It was inhuman for soldiers to start a fire against defenceless people. Those miners are peaceful people who never carry weapons. Our community has good relations with them,” said Klaas Katjedi, a community representative.

He said that the informal settlement was often targeted by police and that apart from raids at the nearby mine, police often came to their homes to conduct raids.

Daggafontein residents met on Friday evening to discuss the way forward.

Katjedi said the community suffered from service delivery problems and that people did not benefit from employment projects. This fuelled informal mining activities. He said the Daggafontein Mega Housing project, which was set to benefit residents in the area in terms of jobs and houses, had stalled.

“It’s sad that some of our community members who benefited from mining may have died in the fire,” he said.

Xolani Mkwanazi, Masedze’s partner, left home for work as usual on Monday morning. She was called to the river later, after he was discovered dead.

Mkwanazi said her partner had tried to look for a job but struggled to find one. She and other family members are trying to put money together to repatriate the body to Masvingo, Zimbabwe.

Some of Masedze’s friends and family gathered to mourn.

Nkululekho Nganga, an informal miner, said he was lucky on the day because he decided to go to work a bit late. When he arrived, he saw the fire and went to seek help.

“There can be close to 100 of us working on a daily basis to process gold because the mine dump is large and there is plenty of gold there. Police always come, and we never fight with them because we are not violent. We always run away,” he said.

A woman miner, Plaxedes Fafitini, said she is now afraid for her life after the fire but does not know how she will survive because mining is her only source of livelihood.

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