Standoff in South Africa ends with 87 miners dead and anger over police's 'smoke them out' tactics

STILFONTEIN, South Africa (AP) — The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87, police said Thursday. Authorities faced growing anger and a possible investigation over their initial refusal to help the miners and instead “smoke them out" by cutting off their food supplies.

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said that 78 bodies were retrieved in a court-ordered rescue operation, with 246 survivors also pulled out from deep underground since the operation began on Monday. Mathe said nine other bodies had been recovered before the rescue operation, without giving details.

Community groups launched their own rescue attempts when authorities said last year they would not help the hundreds of miners because they were “criminals.”

The miners are suspected to have died of starvation and dehydration, although no causes of death have been released.

South African authorities have been fiercely criticized for cutting off food and supplies to the miners in the Buffelsfontein Gold Mine last year. That tactic to “smoke them out,” as described by a prominent Cabinet minister, was condemned by one of South Africa's biggest trade unions.

Police and the mine owners were also accused of taking away ropes and dismantling a pulley system the miners used to enter the mine and send supplies down from the surface.

A court ordered authorities last year to allow food and water to be sent down to the miners, while another court ruling last week forced them to launch a rescue operation.

Many say the unfolding disaster underground was clear weeks ago, when community members sporadically pulled decomposing bodies out of the mine, some with notes attached pleading for food to be sent down.

“If the police had acted earlier, we would not be in this situation, with bodies piling up," said Johannes Qankase, a local community leader. “It is a disgrace for a constitutional democracy like ours. Somebody needs to account for what has happened here.”

South Africa's second biggest political party, which is part of a government coalition, called for President Cyril Ramaphosa to establish an independent inquiry to find out “why the situation was allowed to get so badly out of hand.”

“The scale of the disaster underground at Buffelsfontein is rapidly proving to be as bad as feared,” the Democratic Alliance party said.

Authorities now believe that nearly 2,000 miners were working illegally in the mine near the town of Stilfontein, southwest of Johannesburg, since August last year. Most of them resurfaced on their own over the last few months, police said, and all the survivors have been arrested, even as some emerged this week badly emaciated and barely able to walk to waiting ambulances.

A convoy of mortuary vans arrived at the mine to carry away the bodies.

Mathe said at least 13 children had also come out of the mine before the official rescue operation.

Police announced Wednesday that they were ending the operation after three days and believed no one else was underground. To be sure, a camera was sent down Thursday in a cage that was used to pull out survivors and bodies.

Two volunteer rescuers from the community had gone down in the small cage during the rescue operation to help miners as authorities refused to allow any official rescue personnel to go into the shaft because it was too dangerous.

“It has been a tough few days, there were many people who (we) saved but I still feel bad for those whose family members came out in body bags," said Mandla Charles, one of the volunteer rescuers. “We did all we could.” The two volunteers were being offered trauma counselling, police said.

The mine is one of the deepest in South Africa and is a maze of tunnels and levels and has several shafts leading into it. The miners were working up to 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) underground in different groups.

Police have maintained that the miners were able to come out through several shafts but refused out of fear of being arrested. That’s been disputed by groups representing the miners, who say hundreds were trapped and left starving in dark and damp conditions with decomposing bodies around them.

Police Minister Senzo Mchunu denied in an interview with a national TV station that the police were responsible for any starvation and said they had allowed food to go down.

The initial police operation last year to force the miners to come out and give themselves up for arrest was part of a larger nationwide clampdown on illegal mining called Vala Umgodi, or Close the Hole. Illegal mining is often in the news in South Africa and a major problem for authorities as large groups go into mines that have been shut down to extract leftover deposits.

Gold-rich South Africa has an estimated 6,000 abandoned or closed mines.

The illicit miners, known as “zama zamas” — "hustlers" or “chancers” in the Zulu language — are usually armed and part of criminal syndicates, the government says, and they rob South Africa of more than $1 billion a year in gold deposits. They are often undocumented foreign nationals and authorities said that the vast majority who came out of the Buffelsfontein mine were from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, and were in South Africa illegally.

Police said they seized gold, explosives, firearms and more than $2 million in cash from the miners and have defended their hardline approach.

“By providing food, water and necessities to these illegal miners, it would be the police entertaining and allowing criminality to thrive,” Mathe said Wednesday.

But the South African Federation of Trade Unions questioned the government's humanity and how it could “allow anyone — be they citizens or undocumented immigrants — to starve to death in the depths of the earth.”

While the police operation has been condemned by civic groups, the disaster hasn't provoked a strong outpouring of anger across South Africa, where the mostly foreign zama zamas have long been considered unwelcome in a country that already struggles with high rates of violent crime.

Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

The Acting Provincial Commissioner of North West, Major General Patrick Asaneng, centre, speaks to journalists outside an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Mine rescue workers host up a cage that was used to rescue trapped miners at an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

A truck carrying mine rescue workers drives out as they leave after rescueing trapped miners at an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Mine rescue workers work on a cage that was used to rescue trapped miners at an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

An abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Mine rescue workers host up a cage that was used to rescue trapped miners at an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Rescue workers; motor vehicles park near a rescue operation for miners trapped below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

The Acting Provincial Commissioner of North West, Major General Patrick Asaneng, speaks to journalists outside an abandoned gold mine, where miners are rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Journalists are seen during a stake-out at an abandoned gold mine, where miners were rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe, speaks to journalist outside an abandoned gold mine, where miners are rescued from below ground, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Rescuer workers assist an illegal miner who has been trapped deep in an abandoned gold mine for months, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

A miner is assisted by rescue workers after he was rescued from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Illegal miners are escorted by police officers after being rescued from an abandoned gold mine for months, in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Forensic service workers carry remains in blue body bags during a rescue operation to rescue miners from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Families of miners and activist protest as South Africa's Police minister Senzo Mchunu visit an abandoned gold mine, where miners are rescued from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Families of miners and activist protest as South Africa's Police minister Senzo Mchunu visit an abandoned gold mine, where miners are rescued from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Forensic service vehicles arrive at the site where a rescue operation continues for miners trapped in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Forensic service workers carry body remains in blue body bags during a rescue operation to rescue miners from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Forensic service workers carry bodies in blue body bags during a rescue operation to rescue miners from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

A miner is transported on a stretcher by rescue workers after he was rescued from below ground in an abandoned gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the Holy See's role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.”

Past popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But no pope had ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, the role that past popes played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”

History’s first U.S.-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” (Magnificent Humanity), which was released Monday.

The sweeping manifesto is about safeguarding humanity in an era of increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. Leo raised the slave trade in relation to what he called the new forms of slavery and colonialism that the digital revolution is fueling.

Black American Catholics, activists and scholars have long called for the Holy See to atone for its role in the colonial-era trade in human beings, beyond generic apologies for the involvement of individual Christians.

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”

Shannen Dee Williams, historian at the University of Dayton and author of the 2022 history of American Black Catholic nuns, “Subversive Habits,” welcomed the apology as a "monumental step toward the kind of essential truth-telling and reparation that many Catholics have prayed and worked to witness.”

“The Catholic Church has never been an innocent bystander in the history of white supremacy," said Williams. “Black Catholics have waited a long time to hear the Vatican speak honestly about the church’s leading roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery--and thus by extension the enduring systems of anti-Black racism in the world today.”

The Vatican has insisted that it always upheld the dignity of all human beings as children of God. But a series of 15th-century directives from the Vatican authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians.

In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” and take all possessions — including land — of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” anywhere.

The bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

That bull and another issued three years later, Romanus Pontifex, formed the basis of the Doctrine of Discovery, the theory that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of land in Africa and the Americas.

Nicholas V’s permissions to the Portuguese were confirmed or renewed by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 and Pope Leo X in 1514, according to the Rev. Christopher J. Kellerman, a Jesuit priest and author of “All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church.”

Spanish kings received the rights for the Americas.

In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally rescinded, abrogated or rejected the bulls themselves. The Vatican insists that a later bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples shouldn’t be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, and weren't to be enslaved.

In his encyclical, Leo recalled that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, was the first pope to explicitly condemn slavery in 1888, long after many countries had abolished it. Before that, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, church institutions and even popes — Gregory the Great — had slaves, Kellerman said.

In acknowledging the 15th century papal bulls, Leo wrote in his encyclical: “Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to the requests of sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, including the enslavement of ‘infidels.’”

Leo said it wasn't possible to judge the morality of the decisions with today’s standards.

“Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the church came to denounce the scourge of slavery,” he said.

The pope said that the church has long affirmed the dignity of every human being as the basis of its doctrine, “even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized.”

“This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached,” he said.

Leo said that the church must firmly condemn all forms of trafficking related to the digital technological revolution “if we want to avoid the need to ask for pardon again in the future for having failed to respect the treasure of human dignity that is required by our faith.”

Anthea Butler, senior fellow at the Koch History Center, Oxford University, said Leo needed to acknowledge and atone for the church's complicity in historic slavery if he wanted to credibly “speak to the current issues of technological enslavement.”

“For descendants of enslaved persons, this is once again a much needed apology from the pope,” said Butler, who is Black.

Kellerman, the scholar, welcomed Leo’s apology but said more needs to be done to further acknowledge how the Catholic Church legitimized and expanded slavery.

“Pope Leo has strengthened the moral credibility of the church with this admission and apology today,” he told The Associated Press. “Hopefully a future document will explain in more detail the church’s involvement with slaveholding. As a scholar I have some quibbles with the wording, but this is a truly remarkable moment.”

During a 1985 visit to Cameroon, St. John Paul II asked forgiveness of Africans for the slave trade on behalf of Christians who participated in it, but not the popes. In a 1992 visit to Goree Island, Senegal, which was the largest slave-trading center in West Africa, he denounced the injustice of slavery and called it a “tragedy of a civilization that called itself Christian.”

According to genealogical research published by Henry Louis Gates Jr., 17 of Leo’s American ancestors were Black, listed in census records as mulatto, Black, Creole or a free person of color. His family tree includes slaveholders and enslaved people, Gates wrote in The New York Times.

During a visit to Angola last month, Leo prayed at a Catholic shrine at the site of an important hub of the African slave trade during Portugal’s colonial rule. While at the Sanctuary of Mama Muxima, Leo recalled the “sorrow and great suffering” Angolans endured for centuries, but he didn’t refer specifically to slavery.

Winfield reported from Middletown, Connecticut.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV speaks during the presentation of his first encyclical, "Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," at the Vatican, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV listens to Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, right, during the presentation of Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, "Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," at the Vatican, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV, left, attends the presentation of his first encyclical, "Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," at the Vatican, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV, left, arrives with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin for the presentation of his first encyclical, "Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," at the Vatican, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, right, talks to theologian Leocadie Lushombo during the presentation of his first encyclical, "Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," at the Vatican, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Leo XIV holds the pastoral staff as he celebrates the Pentecost Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)