Over 200 people resurface after mine hostage situation

Miners who were allegedly held hostage at GoldOne’s Modder East mine in Springs, Ekurhuleni, earlier this week have started to resurface in “dribs and drabs”.

According to GroupOne CEO John Hericourt, the workers who were held underground since Sunday night have slowly started to emerge from underground.

“At around 6am this morning we received communication from an underground station that there are people who want to come up,” said Hericourt.

He said several of the miners held underground walked up the incline shaft and continue to emerge in drips and drabs.

“Around two hundred people remain underground and Amcu are demanding to be addressed by a member of management, National Union of Mineworkers leadership and an Amcu representative before releasing the balance of captives,” said Hericourt.

A police source, who cannot be named because he is not authorised to speak to the media, said the balance of hostages are expected to surface after the engagement and hopefully, resolution. Triage for injuries and headcounts are underway to match shift manifests. The source added there were around fifteen injuries noted following the first surfacing.

“The paramedics who were taken captive along with the security guard and the one seriously injured staff member are presently in a clinic, underground, where they are receiving treatment.”

According to a source, once all hostages and their captors have surface there will be a collection of statements from each of the 543 captives by police to establish what really happened underground.

Unconfirmed intent from law enforcement, said the source, would be to charge Amcu and its leadership criminally, should evidence corroborate reports until now, for all 543 counts of kidnapping and inciting violence.

Amcu has denied that miners were being held hostage. The union claimed it was a “sit-in”.

Hericourt could not be drawn on whether GoldOne would pursue civil litigation. He said that it was too early to speculate and preferred to focus on the safe return of all hostages, the resolution of the almost three-day-long ordeal.

However, he confirmed that production loss could amount to several million Rand, and that damage to underground structures or equipment still needs to be assessed.

Hericourt said the interdict they obtained from the Labour Court against the miners’ strike is still in place.

“It’s a legal document that is being ignored currently, but, you know, at the end of the day, our most important pressing need is to ensure we get everybody out from underground. So that’s what we’re focusing on. We’ll, we’ll look at all the other stuff once we have the people out from underground.”

Additional reporting by Faizel Patel