Lily Mine families frustrated by delayed recovery efforts – SABC News

Families of the three miners who remain trapped underground at Lily Mine in Louisville, near Barberton, Mpumalanga, have expressed disappointment with the government’s lack of action to recover their loved ones’ remains ten years later.
Solomon Nyirenda, Pretty Nkambule and Yvonne Mnisi have been stuck in a container since February 5, 2016, which is said to be just over 70 metres underground.
The container was buried under rocks when the ground collapsed. Yvonne’s father, Elmon Mnisi, questions why the government could retrieve the bodies of five miners at Ekapa Minerals Mine in Kimberley, who were trapped 890 meters underground for over a month, but has not taken action in their case. Mnisi says all they have been getting are empty promises.
“Foreign illegal miners were trapped in Stillfontein, a lot of them, and they were all retrieved. Heavy and big machinery was used, which will not even necessarily be required here. What we are complaining about is that today, five workers were retrieved at Ekapa Mine. What is stopping the retrieval of our children, because they were also at work? We want to know if our government has favouritism or what. Whom are we going to cry to?” Mnisi says.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, says the bodies of the three Lily Mine workers will be retrieved.
“I’m saying to my chief inspector, my predecessor, I take full responsibility; I committed one slight mistake, and that mistake was costly up to today. He allowed liquidation in the middle of a crisis. Here, as a minister, currently, I insist that you can talk liquidation; it’s premature. Get those bodies out. Now, in my view, my predecessor should’ve insisted that we hear you; you want to liquidate Vintage, but get those bodies out. There’s no undermining; it’s a question of time and space. We are going to retrieve those bodies, but we’ll have to take a longer route”, Mantshe says.

www.sabcnews.com, https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/lily-mine-families-frustrated-by-delayed-recovery-efforts/