Mining: Four illegal miners killed

Four suspected illegal miners were found dead with gunshots wounds to the head at a gold mine near Johannesburg, police said yesterday. The bodies of the illegal miners were found by security guards employed at the mine on Saturday, police spokesman Lungelo Dlamini said, adding that the motives for the killings were unknown. Illegal mining of abandoned shafts was common in the gold mines around the city, with informal miners living underground in dangerous, cramped conditions for weeks on end as they dug out small parcels of gold-bearing ore. Earlier this year, a dozen illegal miners were rescued after being trapped in an abandoned gold mine in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, where gold had been mined for decades. – Reuters