South African President Cyril Ramaphosa authorized the deployment of 1,000 more soldiers to the north of the country in the area of an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein in the northwest of the country, head of joint army operations Siphiwe Sangweni said at the meeting of the South African Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Defense on Friday.
"A complement of 1,100 members of the South African National Defense Force will be deployed in cooperation with the South African Police Service to support and assist the security cluster in the fight against illegal mining and the related criminality across the country," he noted.
Following a mine shaft incident in the town of Stilfontein, where illegal miners were blocked underground and refused to emerge, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu reported that 1,187 people had come out so far, with one death and a significant number of illegal miners still underground.
The government will not help illegal miners trapped in a shaft in Stilfontein, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told media on Wednesday.
"We're going to smoke them out; they will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be persecuted. We didn't send them there, and they didn't go down there for the benefit of the republic, so we can't help them," the minister said.