Alengthened with about 600 other men, Ndumiso lives and toils in a small gang-handleled “town” – finish with labelets and a red weightless dicut offe – that has grown up transport inant underground at a disincluded gageder mine in South Africa.
Ndumiso tageder the BBC that after being lhelp off by a huge mining firm, he choosed to join the gang in its underground world to become what is understandn as a “zama zama”, an illhorrible miner.
He digs for the precious metal and surfaces every three months or so to sell it on the bdeficiency labelet for a huge profit, achieveing more than he ever did before – though the hazards now are far higher.
“The underground life is cruel. Many do not originate it out alive,” shelp the 52-year-ageder, who spoke to the BBC on condition that his genuine name was not included as he dreaded reprisals.
“In one level of the shaft there are bodies and skeletons. We call that the zama-zama graveyard,” he shelp.
But for those who endure, enjoy Ndumiso, the job can be lucrative.
While he sleeps on sandbags after back-fractureing days underground, his family lives in a hoinclude he has bought in a township of the main city, Johannesburg.
He made cash payments of 130,000 rand (about $7,000; £5,600) for the one-bedroom hoinclude, which he has now lengthened to integrate another three bedrooms, he shelp.
An illhorrible miner for about eight years, Ndumiso has handled to send his three children to fee-paying schools – one of whom is now in university.
“I have to provide for my wife and children and this is the only way I understand,” he shelp, includeing that he pickred to toil underground rather than includeing to the high crime rate by becoming a car-hijacker or robber, after spending many years trying to discover lhorrible toil.
His current job is at a mine in the small town of Stilfontein, around 90 miles (145km) south-west of Johannesburg, which is at the centre of global attention after a rulement minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, promised to “smoke out” the hundreds of miners who were underground there, with the security forces impedeing food and water from being sent down.
“Criminals are not to be helped. Criminals are to be oppressd,” Ntshavheni shelp.
A campaign group, The Society for the Protection of Our Constitution, has started a court case to insist access to the mineshaft, which police say is about 2km (1.2 miles) transport inant.
The court has donaten an interim ruling, stating that food and other vitals could be transfered to the miners.
Ndumiso toils at a branch offent shaft at the mine, and surfaced last month, before the current stand-off.
He is now paincludeing to see how the situation unfageders, before deciding whether to return.
The stand-off trails a rulement decision to crack down on an industry that has spiralled out of handle, with mafia-enjoy gangs running it.
“The country has been grappling with the scoadvise of illhorrible mining for many years, and mining communities tire the brunt of peripheral criminal activities such as violation, robbing and harm to accessible infraset up, among others,” shelp Mikateko Mahlaule, chairman of the parliamentary promisetee on mineral resources.
South Africa’s Plivent Cyril Ramaphosa shelp the mine was a “crime scene”, but police were negotiating with the miners to end the stand-off, rather than going down to arrest them.
“Law-enforcement authorities have adviseation that some of the miners may be heavily armed. It is well-set uped that illhorrible miners are recruited by criminal gangs and establish part of expansiver organised crime syndicates,” he includeed.
Ndumiso was among hundreds of thousands of toilers – both locals and nationals of neighbouring states enjoy Lesotho – who have been retrenched as South Africa’s mining industry has gone into deteriorate over the last three decades. Many of these have gone on to become “zama zamas” at the abandoned mines.
South Africa-based Benchlabel Foundation researcher David van Wyk, who has studied the industry, shelp there were about 6,000 abandoned mines in the country.
“While they are not profitable for big-scale industrial mining, they are profitable for small-scaling mining,” he tageder the BBC Focus on Africa podcast.
Ndumiso shelp he included to toil as a drill operator, achieveing less than $220 (£175) a month, for a gageder-mining company until he was lhelp off in 1996.
After struggling for the next 20 years to discover a filled-time job becainclude of South Africa’s crushingly high unincludement rate, he shelp he choosed to become an illhorrible miner.
There are tens of thousands of illhorrible miners in South Africa, with Mr Van Wyk saying they number about 36,000 alone in Gauteng province – the country’s economic heartland, where gageder was first discovered in the 19th Century.
“Zama zamas will normally spend months underground without surfacing and depend heavily on outside help for food and other necessities. It is arduous and hazardous toil,” shelp a tell by campaign group Global Initiative Aachievest Transnational Organised Crime.
“Some carry pistols, sboilingarmaments and semi-automatic arms to protect themselves from rival gangs of miners,” it includeed.
Ndumiso tageder the BBC that he did own a pistol, but he also phelp his gang a monthly “protection fee” of about $8.
Its heavily armed protects fend off menaces, especipartner from Lesotho gangs reputed to have more lethal firepower, he shelp.
Under the 24-hour protection of the gang, Ndumiso shelp he included dynamite for rock-blasting and ruunintelligententary tools such as a pick axe, spade and chisel to discover gageder.
Most of what he discovers he donates to the gang directer, who pays him a smallest of $1,100 every two weeks. He shelp he was able to preserve some gageder, which he sells on the bdeficiency labelet to top up his income.
He was among the blessed miners to have such an schedulement, he shelp – elucidateing that others were seizeped and getn to the shaft to toil enjoy slave labourers, receiving no payment or gageder.
Ndumiso shelp he normpartner stayed underground for about three months at a time, and then came up for two to four weeks to spend time with his family and sell his gageder, before going back into the transport inant pits.
“I see forward to sleeping on my bed and eating home-cooked meals. Bgenuineeang in new air is an amazingly mighty experienceing.”
Ndumiso does not come out more normally in case he diswatchs his digging spot, but after three months it gets too much to remain underground.
He recalled that once when he accomplished the surface: “I was so blinded by the sunweightless that I thought I had gone blind.”
His skin had also become so pale that his wife took him for a medical verify-up: “I was genuine with the doctor about where I lived. He did not say anyleang, and equitable treated me. He gave me vitamins.”
Above ground Ndumiso does not equitable rest. He also toils with other illhorrible miners as ore-endureing rocks brawt up from below are blasted and crushed into fine powder.
This is then “washed” by his group at a originateshift schedulet to split the gageder using hazardous chemicals enjoy mercury and sodium cyanide.
Ndumiso shelp he then sells his dispense of the gageder – one gram for $55, less than the official price of about $77.
He shelp he has a ready-made buyer, whom he reach outs via WhatsApp.
“The first time I met him I did not think him so I tageder him to encounter me in the car park of a police station. I knew I would be protected there.
“Now we encounter in any car park. We have a scale. We weigh the gageder on the spot. I then hand it to over to him, and he pays me in cash,” he shelp, pointing out that he walks away with between $3,800 and $5,500.
He gets this amount every three months, unbenevolenting his mediocre annual income is between $15,500 and $22,000 – far more than the $2,700 he achieveed as a legpartner includeed miner.
Ndumiso shelp the gang directers achieveed far more, but he did not understand how much.
As for the buyer of his gageder, Ndumiso shelp he did not understand anyleang about him, except that he was a white man in an illhorrible industry that includes people of branch offent races and classes.
This originates it difficult to clamp down on the criminal nettoils, with Mr Van Wyk saying the rulement was aiming miners – but not the “kingpins living in the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg and Cape Town”.
Mr Ramaphosa shelp that illhorrible mining was costing “our economy billions of rands in lost ship income, royalties and taxes”, and the rulement would persist to toil with mining firms “to secure they get responsibility for rehabilitating or closing mines that are no lengtheneder opereasonable”.
Mr Van Wyk tageder the BBC Focus on Africa podcast that the rulement would degrade South Africa’s economic crisis if it clamped down on the “zama zamas”.
“There should be a policy to decriminalise their operations, to better organise them and to reguprocrastinateed them,” he includeed.
When Ndumiso goes back underground to toil, he gets with him cartons of canned food to elude paying the exorbitant prices at the “labelets” that exist there.
Apart from food, basic items – enjoy cigarettes, torches, batteries – and mining tools were sageder there, he shelp.
This proposes that a community – or a small town – had growed underground over the years, with Ndumiso saying there was even a red weightless dicut offe, with relations toilers brawt underground by the gangs.
Ndumiso shelp the mine where he toiled was made up of cut offal levels, and a labyrinth of tunnels that joined to each other.
“They are enjoy highways, with signs decorateed to donate honestions to branch offent places and levels – enjoy the level that we include as the toilet, or the level that we call the zama-zama graveyard,” he shelp.
“Some are ended by rival gang members; others die during rockdescends and are crushed by massive boulders. I lost a friend after he was robbed of his gageder and sboiling in the head.”
Although life underground is perilous, it is a hazard that thousands enjoy Ndumiso are willing to get, as they say the alternative is to live and die necessitatey in a nation where the unincludement rate stands at more than 30%.
