The Stilfontein mine is a crime scene,” Ramaphosa said, adding that police must secure the area while ensuring the miners' safe return...."

The South African police intensified efforts to force hundreds of illegal gold miners holed in underground shafts to the surface so they can be arrested.

A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners to allow emergency workers to gain access to a mine shaft where several hundred are believed to remain after the government cut off vital supplies.

South Africa's government says it will let thousands of illegal miners starve until they accept their fate and emerge from an abandoned shaft to face arrest.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday lives should not be put at risk in a standoff between police and hundreds of illegal miners stuck underground in a disused mine shaft and the miners should be recovered safely.

Around the gaping shaft of a disused mine, the South African police on Saturday waited to pounce on anyone trying to escape to the surface. Their siege has gone on for weeks, trying to flush out hundreds of men accused of illegal mining in an abandoned gold mine,