Cape Town – Gauteng police discovered six mutilated bodies of suspected illegal miners on the N1 freeway in Bosmont and New Canada, Johannesburg District on Tuesday.
This was after police were alerted to bodies lying in an open veld, police said in the statement.
According to police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili, the bodies had gunshot wounds and the motive of the shooting remained unknown.
“The motive for the shooting cannot be confirmed at this stage although the victims are suspected to be illegal miners. A police investigation is under way,” said Muridili.
TimesLIVE reported that the bodies lay undiscovered overnight on Tuesday.
“Some of them had their eyes gouged out, some had their hands chopped off, one face was beaten in with a rock — it was terrible,” the report quoted Basil Peters of the Bosmont Community Patrollers.
Peter alleged that the crew was in a meeting at the soccer field when gunshots rang at around 18:00.
He said they left the area but heard the shooting continue for over an hour.
“You must understand this is nothing new for the area. Every night we hear shootings. It’s like a war here — sometimes up to 50 gunshots in one night,” said Peters, as he explained why there wasn’t much reaction to the earlier shootings.
Speaking to eNCA, a community member who witnessed the shooting said there were more than a hundred people along the graveyard, then the zama zama’s started running.
“Those people started chasing them and then gunshots started happening,
“There must have been a 120 of them shooting at the zama zamas…they clearly came to hunt them down,” said the community member.
The community member suggested that the mine should be closed down, as shootings had become a regular occurrence in the area, especially between 21:00 and 04:oo.
Muridili said specialised teams had been launched to combat illegal mining in the province, reported News24.
“We have specialised teams working to flatten and close the mines. As police, we were not able to do this alone. With the reinforcements, they are concentrating only on illegal mining, and police are dealing with policing.”
Muridili added that the police were investigating several cases of murder, the report said.
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Compiled by Olwethu Mpeshe
