Agony and anguish of families of Lily Mine miners trapped underground since 2016
It has been five years, one month and 20 days.
Everyone knows the story and everyone is forgetting it now.
“For us as mothers, we cannot forget. Our children are still under.”
These are the words of a mother who believes her child might still be alive even though it has been 1 875 days since a container-office went down when an area of the Lily Mine entrance collapsed in Louisville near Barberton, Mpumalanga, on February 5, 2016.
About 30 people now live just a few hundred metres from the gate of the mine after being instructed by the courts to move from the area where their children are still underground.
The families have been living in this communal camp for almost 700 days to keep the memories of their children alive and say they will stay there, under the harsh conditions, until the remains of their three children have been retrieved.
They fear that the story of Solomon Nyerende, Pretty Nkambule and Yvonne Mnisi might fade and be forgotten.
“My daughter left a five-month-old child behind, she is almost six-years old now and doesn’t know her mother,” says the mother of Kambule, Lomvimvi Mavuso.
“They do not care about us!” she says.
Henry Mazibuko, who was a safety officer at the time of the accident, said: “We were good when we paid our membership fees, now even the unions don’t support us.”
He sees illegal miners enter the mine all the time yet a court order and security guards prevent these families from being with their loved ones.
They are not the only ones affected. Almost 1 000 people lost their jobs with the closing of Lily and Barbrook mines.
Spending time with the families, sleeping on the floors with them and eating their food was a humbling experience.
I learnt that they would not give up hope of a dignified burial.
ActionSA has in recent weeks come on board in support, and the families are satisfied with the direct line of communication they have with advocate Wendel Bloem, who helped them obtain permission to visit the mine during my visit.
The legal team has filed papers urging the court to see this matter as frustrating for the families and miners who have been receiving hostile treatment from the government and business rescue, who have failed to uphold a 2019 high court ruling to action their work within 10 days.
“The container with our children is less than 70m down, between level 3 and 4 (the mine has 12 deep levels). “
The reason why there is still no operation to retrieve them is because “too many truths will be exposed”.
These are the words of the families who believe that chief executive Mike McChesney, is hiding evidence that could give him “certain jail time”.
It has already been established by the DMRE report that mine management were liable for the collapse.
“Claims are that stabiliser beams were mined from unused shafts and that this may have led to the safety integrity of the mine being compromised even more following 10 other rockfalls that were never reported. This could be the main cause of the collapse,” says Mazibuko.
The families are adamant that South Africa has the skills and expertise to execute this operation, given its involvement in a more than 800m deep operation to rescue miners in Chile in October 2010.
All eyes are now fixed on the Mpumalanga High Court proceedings on May 4.
The Star