THE outbreak of the deadly pandemic COVID 19 led to the enaction of strict measures to try and control the spread of the virus has negatively affected people`s daily lives especially the national lockdowns and the closure of country borders.
Thousands have lost their jobs as companies are heavily incapacitated while families who survived on food sent by relatives in the diaspora are facing food shortages as borders are still closed. Therefore, majority of people find themselves cornered by the COVID 19 grim reaper that has devoured over a million lives across the world according to the global statistics shared by the World Health Organisation.
In Mat South, a gold rich province, majority of youths who are still eager to get on with their lives especially school children who have been at home since the enaction of the national lockdown have joined other illegal miners to survive.
CYDT got in touch with various artisanal miners and youths to understand the situation on the ground, and one of the small scale miners, Mr Memory Ngwenya from Maphisa in Matobo District said there was massive increases of illegal miners as many now see it as a good strategy for survival.
“There is a sharp increase of illegal miners even health workers from Maphisa Hospital have joined us. We have friends we play snooker with, they have also joined us. I think there maybe a 25% to 30% increase of people who have joined illegal miners. Majority of able bodied youths in surrounding areas are now involved in mining activities,” Mr Ngwenya said.
Another youth from Maphisa, Miss Thembelihle Mabaso added that poor network connectivity in the district has resulted to school children failing to access radio learning which has seen many of them joining small scale miners.
It is imperative to highlight that the increase of illegal miners is concerning as the conditions where these mining activities take place are very risky with social distancing and other required practices such as wearing a masks difficult to enforce.
Illegal mining in Mat South has left many injured while others have lost their lives as a result of these dangerous conditions. The state owned Chronicle newspaper published on the 13 of August this year that two illegal gold panners suffered horrible deaths as the mine they were panning gold in collapsed and buried them alive.
“Two illegal gold panners died after a shaft they were working in collapsed and buried them at mine in West Nicholson,” reads the article from Chronicle.
The mainstream newspaper added that Matabeleland South provincial police spokesperson Chief Inspector Philisani Ndebele had confirmed the incident which happened in the early hours of Wednesday at West Nicholson in Gwanda District.
In light of this latest illegal mining tragedy, a small scale miner from Mat South in Gwanda who spoke on anonymity said that since illegal mining is not encouraged and dangerous, it is imperative that the RDC and the government pay attention to the public grievances which will prevent them from adopting dangerous copying mechanisms.
“People are suffering, we have no food; people who look after us are in South Africa and are failing to send us food since borders are closed. So we find ourselves doing activities that are not safe because we have no choice,” said the small scale miner.
The artisanal miner added that massive government support will ensure the safety of disadvantaged groups who have been heavily affected by the COVID 19 outbreak in Zimbabwe.
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