"Don’t fear arrest, I am not scared of anything, as long as I am still alive, that’s all that matters.”
These are the words from one zama-zama, or illegal miner, who was arrested this morning.
The illegal miner was nabbed just after resurfacing from underground in the west of Johannesburg.
There, illegal mining activities are thriving, and are spearheaded mostly by foreign nationals from the Kingdom of Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
The illegal miner appeared not to be perturbed by what was happening to him, instead displaying good spirits and smiling to the cameras.
“I have been underground for the past two weeks and three days,” he said, as he was handcuffed and placed at the back of a police van, there he joined other illegal miners who were also arrested this morning.
When asked who they were working for, one zama-zama responded... “we work for ourselves”, while another one was heard saying... “we work to feed our families”.
The men were transported to the nearest police station, after being arrested by the SAPS, just as Police Minister Bheki Cele touched down at Riverlea in Johannesburg for an illegal mining Imbizo, where he immediately instructed officers to place the suspects into a police car.
Over 100 zama-zama’s have been arrested this week as police continued to crack down on illegal mining.
Earlier this week, Cele promised residents of Riverlea that police would route-out illegal miners from their area after community members took to the streets.
This was after about five bodies were discovered after a clash between zama-zamas over the weekend.
Cele announced that a cluster made out of the SAPS, SANDF, Home Affairs Department, Correctional Services, and Justice, would meet President Cyril Ramaphosa tomorrow morning, to discuss the issue of illegal mining.
“I can reveal that tomorrow at 11am we are meeting the president, who has called the cluster to make sure that this (operation) should not be once off. Personnel making up the cluster includes SAPS, SANDF, Home Affairs Department, Correctional Services, and Justice. The president wants to make sure that illegal mining comes to an end so that the people of Gauteng and South Africa live better,” said Cele.
According to DMR, it is estimated that the South African economy and the mining sector lost approximately R49 billion in 2019 to illegal mining. It is further estimated that mining companies spend over R2 billion on security just to prevent these illicit activities.