20 reported shot as Riverlea’s zama zamas battle for control
30 July 2023
There was another major gun battle between different gangs of illegal miners in the Johannesburg suburb of Riverlea last night.
Residents reported gangs of men armed with automatic weapons moving through suburban areas and heavy gunfire. They say up to 20 people were shot. One resident says they treated a seriously wounded man and woman on the pavement outside their house while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Other residents say a man was shot and wounded and taken away by police. Videos being circulated show armed men moving through the suburb and to the sound of continuous automatic gunfire. Other local reports say one gang left the area carrying what appeared to be two bodies wrapped in blankets.
Last week a Riverlea resident was killed in crossfire. It is unclear whether it was crossfire between rival mining gangs or whether it involved the police.
Windows are regularly broken and cars damaged by flying bullets as rival gangs attempt to assert control over the Zamamphilo mining settlement, a collection of hundreds of shacks where most of the occupants appear to be foreigners and where the primary activities are illegal mining and illegal gold processing. The settlement is a few meters from Main Reef Road and sits between Riverlea and Industria. It lies atop the buried Transnet fuel pipeline and a major high-pressure water main. This is another major source of concern. If illegal mining activities rupture either pipeline, large numbers of people could be killed or injured.