Late last year, a specialized camera was lowered into an almost 1.6-mile-deep mineshaft in South Africa where hundreds of miners were reported to be trapped and starving.

South Africa’s police have resorted to medieval military tactics against illegal miners. But the solution lies elsewhere: massive regional economic repair.

Rights groups are criticizing South Africa’s government for failing to prevent what they call a “massacre” at the Buffelsfontein mine, after security officials cut off food, water, and other essential supplies to miners trapped underground and delayed a rescue operation.

South African police say a suspected illegal gold mining ringleader escaped from custody with help from police officers about a week after resurfacing from a disused mine in South Africa where 246 survivors were rescued and 78 bodies were retrieved last week.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.

The prospectors were trapped underground for months as police, on orders from South Africa’s government, attempted to starve them out.

Rescuers and volunteers have pulled at least 78 dead miners and more than 160 survivors from an abandoned South African gold mine

South Africa's police have launched a manhunt for an alleged "kingpin", who is accused of controlling operations at an abandoned gold mine where 78 corpses were discovered last week. The police force said officials had helped James Neo Tshoaeli, a Lesotho national also known as Tiger, to escape after he was pulled up from the mine in Stilfontein.

In South Africa a months long standoff between police and illegal miners in an abandoned gold mine comes to end, with close to 80 found dead in grim recovery operation.

South African police are searching for 'Tiger,' a gang leader involved in an illegal gold mine where 78 bodies were found. Surviving miners report starvation as gang leaders hoarded food. The incident has raised questions about accountability,

By Nellie Peyton JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South African police are hunting a gang leader from Lesotho believed to have controlled operations at an illegal gold mine where 78 bodies were recovered last week after months of police siege.