JOHANNESBURG - Authorities claim victory over illegal mining will depend on tighter border controls.
This is because most of the thousands arrested during Operation Vala Mgodi are foreign nationals from the SADC region.
In the Stilfontein incident, 1 826 illegal miners surfaced from underground.
The majority of those involved were undocumented foreign nationals from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho.
In Barberton, approximately 1,000 illegal miners were arrested, many of whom were also undocumented foreign nationals from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho.
Many of them claim they were promised jobs and money, only to find themselves inside unused mine shafts, digging under intense conditions.
Mineral Resources Minister Gwede Mantashe noted the emerging trend.
He warns that an individual who enters the country illegally and engages in unlawful economic activity cannot be sanitised or reclassified as an artisanal and small-scale mine.
Mantashe made the comments during his appearance at the SAHRC's inquiry into artisanal mining.
READ | Mantashe says govt not obliged to rehabilitate disused mines
He said that while illegal mining was once largely confined to derelict and ownerless mines, it is now increasingly encroaching on operational and licensed mines.
This, he said, is posing serious risks to safety, security, and economic stability.
The police and the army launched Operation Vala Mgodi in response.
But the battle is only getting tougher.
Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia said they are dealing with violent criminal cartels, which place police under enormous pressure.
To bring this problem under control, police also have to deal with gang violence in many parts of the country, he said.
Bearing the brunt of this criminal activity are community members.
Communities living near abandoned mines face environmental damage and constant safety threats from illegal miners.
Recently, residents of Sporong informal settlement near Randfontein were forced to flee their homes after illegal miner violence.
READ | Illegal mining violence forces hundreds of Sporong families into shelter
In North West’s Bapong village, illegal miners are extracting chrome at residents’ doorsteps.
In the West Rand’s Ekuphakameni Mining village, they’ve declared a no-go area.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
The miners are heavily armed with high-calibre explosives, evidence of a sophisticated criminal network.
The SAHRC is probing the national policy framework around artisanal mining and will soon be drafting recommendations to tackle the crisis