Police recover 19 bodies of suspected ‘zama zama’ miners

South African police said Wednesday they had discovered 19 bodies suspected to be those of informal miners in Krugersdorp, a mining town west of Johannesburg.

Police “responded to a call following the discovery of 19 bodies of alleged illegal miners in one of the active mines in the area,” they said in a statement.

Initial investigations suggest the bodies had been moved from elsewhere and dumped at the site where they were discovered, police said, giving no further details.

Autopsies will be carried out to determine the causes of the deaths.

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Thousands of unregistered miners known as “zama zamas” — which means “those who try their luck” in Zulu — operate in the country where they scrape for remnants of minerals in obsolete mines.

South Africa’s commercial hub Johannesburg and its surrounding areas are built around mountainous dumps of soil and cavernous pits left behind by generations of mining companies that started extracting during a gold rush in the 1880s.

In July informal miners, commonly believed to be foreigners in the country illegally, were blamed for the shocking mass rape of eight women in Krugersdorp.

© Agence France-Presse