ActionSA offers to retrieve the bodies of the deceased Lily Miners – Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi, and Solomon Nyirenda
17 November 2024
It is short of a decade - 9 years in February 2025 – since tragedy struck at the Lily Mine, Barberton, when the crown pillar located between the roof of underground levels 3 and 4 collapsed and caved into the old underground workings of the mine. It took down a container with innocent and law-abiding three mine workers in it and, to date, their bodies are yet to be retrieved and their families to find closure.
Frustrated by the long wait and the lingering pain of the victims’ families, ActionSA – which has already spent millions of rands in legal fees and other support for the families of Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi, and Solomon Nyirenda - has now written to RC Devreaux, Business Rescue Practitioner of the Vantage Goldfileds, with an offer to retrieve the bodies of the deceased.
“The whole thing has been turned into an upmanship battle through litigation by Vantage Goldfields and Agromanzi. It is sad”, lamented Herman Mashaba, ActionSA President. “I cannot sit by with a clear conscience knowing that these families continue to be denied the justice they deserve.”
The families of the Lily Mine three have fought all these years for the retrieval of their loved ones and the dignity that comes with them. They have done this in the face of what has seemed to be national indifference for their plight. ActionSA makes this proposal to fight for these families precisely because everyone else has either forgotten and moved on or simply given up on their story.
We shouldn’t forget:
1. That the families of the 3 victims have been camping outside the mine for over six years despite the inhuman disruption of their family lives. They are committed not to leave the site until the retrieval of the container.
2. The contempt of court by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) following a judgement by the Mbombela Magistrate Court that it criminally charges:
Mine management for reckless operations after being warned twice by mining experts, two years before the collapse of this container, about the dangers of their activities.
Some members of the police in Barberton for failing to institute criminal charges against mine management when the families reported this matter.
Some senior members of the Department of Minerals & Energy for their complicity in preventing the container from being retrieved.
ActionSA’s decision to seek permission to handle the retrieval is informed by the contempt of court by the NPA, as well as numerous days by mine management and the DMER to prioritise their financial interest ahead of dignity the affected families.
We have been given the legal right to defend the families in the matter, so we see no reason to remain quiet in the face of more than a year of NPA contempt of court. Therefore, instead of continuing to wait for some action by the NPA, we feel that it is appropriate to go the route we propose and to directly obtain the rights to secure a company with relevant expertise in mining rescue, here in South Africa or elsewhere, to help retrieve the container with the three bodies and finally get justice for the families.
We have therefore written to RC Devereaux to ask for permission to retrieve the bodies at our own cost because we believe this will enable the families to bury their loved ones and start their journey towards relative closure.
We have also brought this request to the attention of the Department of Mineral & Energy, hoping that their intervention might assist that the BRP gives us the permission to secure professional mining recue services for the eventual retrieval of this container, at no cost to them.
If granted, we commit to ensure that the retrieval of the container is done in coordination with the Business Rescue Practitioner, mine owners, Vantage Goldfields and the Department of Mineral & Energy.
Issued by Herman Mashaba, ActionSA President, 17 November 2024
