South Africa's health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, has voiced his concerns after police said it would send antiretroviral (ARV) medication to illegal miners trapped underground in the Stilfontein mine in the North West.
The illegal miners who have been underground for more than a month sent a note to the surface on Monday asking for ARVs, which are primarily used for treating HIV.
The note written in Zulu and translated in English read: “Can we please have ARV pills? People need them here, please.”
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi insists antiretroviral drugs are not medications given out without a thorough diagnosis.
“We don’t just willy-nilly give out ARVs because they are part of chronic medication; we don’t give such meds if we don’t know the diagnosis of that person. What if that medication will make the situation worse? We need to know the current medical status of that person before we could give out the medication,” spokesperson of the Health Department, Foster Mohale, said.
Interim order
The decision to send medication to the miners follows an interim order issued by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria this week for relief workers to be granted access to the mine shaft.
The miners and police have had a standoff lasting more than a month, with relatives accusing authorities of trapping the miners underground and blocking efforts to provide them with food and water.
Police, however, say the illegal miners are not trapped but have refused to emerge from the abandoned mine for fear of being arrested.
An operation to “rescue” the “trapped” illegal miners commenced on Wednesday.
'Emerge without arrests'
A South African High Court on Tuesday adjourned a case filed by miners demanding that they be allowed to emerge from underground without being arrested, state broadcaster SABC reports.
An organisation, the Society for the Protection of our Constitution, approached the court on behalf of the miners.
But police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said the court order does not prevent officers from performing their constitutional mandate.
“SAPS static deployment operations continue at all abandoned and disused mining shafts in the Stilfontein area, where a call is once again made to all illegal miners to resurface. The order does not in anyway prevent SAPS from performing its constitutional mandate,” said Mathe.
“All those who resurface will continue to be assessed by emergency medical personnel on site, as has been the case. Those that are in good health will be processed and detained. Those that require further medical care will be taken to hospital under police guard,” she added.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa had said that illegal miners’ activities posed a risk to “our economy, communities, and personal safety." He, however, called for a peaceful resolution to the standoff.
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