Late last year, a specialized camera was lowered into an almost 1.6-mile-deep mineshaft in South Africa where hundreds of miners were reported to be trapped and starving.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.

The prospectors were trapped underground for months as police, on orders from South Africa’s government, attempted to starve them out.

Rescuers and volunteers have pulled at least 78 dead miners and more than 160 survivors from an abandoned South African gold mine

A gang leader suspected of running illegal gold mining operations in South Africa has escaped police custody. An investigation and manhunt have been launched to find him and those who helped him get away.

Newly sworn-in U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he will declare illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency, send troops there and ramp up deportations of criminal offenders, outlining the crackdown in his inaugural address.

Arguing that the miners had entered the mine without permission, authorities reportedly cracked down by cutting off their access to food and water.

South African police are searching for 'Tiger,' a gang leader involved in an illegal gold mine where 78 bodies were found. Surviving miners report starvation as gang leaders hoarded food. The incident has raised questions about accountability,

The death toll in a monthslong standoff between police and miners trapped while working illegally in an abandoned gold

By Nellie Peyton JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South African police are hunting a gang leader from Lesotho believed to have controlled operations at an illegal gold mine where 78 bodies were recovered last week after months of police siege.