Dirty, dark and slippery. It is how I found the condition of the illegal Black Chrome tunnels in Burgersfort, Limpopo province of South Africa.
The terrain is mountainous with breathtaking views reminiscent of Zimbabwe’ s Nyanga area. There is a dam that’s stretches as far as the eye could see between Steelport and Burgersfort towns. Serene and at peace with itself, one cannot help but marvel at the work of God.
But here, at the illegal black chrome site, empty energy drink canisters, plastic beer containers, cigarette butts and paper plates decorated the environs everywhere where I looked.
Getting into the tunnels was a first for me underground ever. Honestly it was probably the most bizzare thing I have done in my lifetime.
I found men, sweaty and smelly from days of back- breaking work.
They wore shorts, flip-flops, and threadbare overalls. The skin caked and ashen in the dim light. Some were bare-feeted. Some looked camoufledged in soot and dust like a rag-tag army of bandits somewhere in West Africa.
Each carried an empty paint bucket. After filling it up with chromite rocks and fine black sand they call ‘Dhafu’ using bare or gloved hands or in some instances a spade, they trooped out, methodically bend over in a beeline, heaving their loot towards a small entrance in the dimly lit tunnel.
In the mining jargon, these men are called ‘Avanzas’ in light of the Toyota car model that has enough capacity to carry more.
One can rarely stand up at full height in the labyrinth of tunnels at Black Chrome site.
Inside the tunnels, a few lights flickered, wired onto a maze of electrical cables running from petrol-powered generators outside the entrance.
The dozen or so generators make a cacophony of noise some in staccato bursts like gunfire.
It is the only other marked noise in the dead of the night adding to the heavy panting of men and stamping of feet as men trudge uphill from the tunnel carrying their loot up a steep slope aprroximately 100 metres.
Midway, some would take a break and curse their lives in unprintable words in exasperation. Some whistle or let out a shrill cry of impatience to the one in front.
‘Famba Gweja’ loosely translated to get on with it illegal miner.
The battle-hardened would say words of encouragement to each other.
‘Zvichanaka wamai’, meaning all will be well family.
All the men I met in the tunnels were Zimbabweans from across the country’ s ten provinces. I would say hundreds of Zimbabweans are at the centre of these mining activities in Limpopo province.
First it is an easy source of income. The majority of them have no proper proper documentation hence they cannot be assimilated in the formal employment market.
Secondly because of their tenacity and enduring stamina towards the nature of the job. Zimbabweans are known for possessing resilience in spades since the late Mugabe’s tenure when the economy plumetted to dizzying depths, they almost always had another plan to survive.
There are no women at all doing the heavy work except for a couple of female buyers and others doing clerical work at the bottom of the mountain.
The envy of the lot were the drillers, the ones using jackhammers to crack open the seams of chrome into rocks and fine sand that can be ferried out.
These men had groups of three that would go in for a night and day shift underground before coming out.
They made a bit of money, tied to the number of wheelbarrows they produced. They are paid between R2500-R3000 per each 230 wheelbarrows of chrome delivered at the bottom of the hill.
From the belly of the earth, the stock would be carried out to a slope then put in wheel barrows downhill where it is carefully measured, counted and later heaped into small black mountains.
Each wheelbarrow load delivered at the mountain foot fetches R50 for the employers who own generators and jackhammer teams.
At the black market it fetches R100, that is for those buyers without cracking equipment.
How one acquires the chrome is not their business but it is a very deadly enterprise if one is seen to be stealing chrome from the ones with equipment.
The wheelbarrows are clearly marked and personalized and hell has no fury than an illegal miner whose stock has been stolen. It is suicidal to steal anything in these mountains. I have seen deadly fights between rival groups I would not want to be part of.
Two people are known to have died at the Black Chrome site in unexplained circumstances since operations began in the last two years.
A number of chrome buyers are stationed at the bottom of the mountain. These are the people who control and pay the jackhammer teams inside the tunnels. They own the jackhammer machines, wheelbarrows, paint buckets and generators.
Particularly one buyer simply known as Evans calls the shots here. Young and energetic, he cruises around in a white Toyota GD6 SUV. He is feared immensely and is well connected. He is the man who has links with the DMR. Apparently he is told in advance if and when they are coming to raid. He is also touted as one who bribes them not to come to the Black Chrome site. His word carries the day.
Buyers are the bosses secretly pulling the strings at the illegal mine shaft. At this tunnel, I am told they are one family, monied, armed and dangerous to fool around with.
Then comes, the trucks- the tippers. Each is 230 wheelbarrows. And it should measure upto 35 tonnes at the weighbridge in Steelport, another small town to the west of Burgersfort where the chrome is delivered at a depot.
From there, trucks again haul it to Duburn awaiting shipment to overseas markets mainly China which has increasingly become an insatiable beast for African minerals, at a price of course.
Globally, there is a race for ‘green’ metals used in the manufacturing of electric vehicles (EV). These include cobalt, copper, lithium, chrome, manganese – minerals that are ubiquitous in Africa hence a massive investment drive in the extractive mining ventures especially by Chinese firms.
Chromite is an important ore of chromium, the metal used in stainless steel, nichrome and chrome plating. It is also essential in the manufacturing of chemical products.
It is slightly magnetic and can be identified by its colour, gravity and characteristic brown streak. It is found in igneous and metamorphic rocks such as serpentinite.
Other known large deposits of chromite exist in Russia, India, Kazakhstan, Philippines, New Caledonia, Zimbabwe, Kosovo, Turkey, Brazil and Cuba.
In Limpopo province, mining is brisk business for truckers. They have escorts trailing them on duty, chrome is black gold. And there is a tug of war in the background just like in the South African taxi industry. Who carries what and how many loads is closely monitored.
Travelling between Burgersfort and Middleburg, one cannot escape to notice the huge number of truckers on the highway.
There is lush farmland, there is plenty of mining towers hovering in the horizon.
The area is just bursting with mining activities and it is not only chromite.
Nonetheless, the government has an oversight role in all the activities unfolding in the province.
And so the police came over to raid tunnels in the adjacent mountain. Yes, the dreaded DMR in short ,ie Department of Mineral Resources.
From atop the mountain one evening, I could see their calvacade of trucks carrying confisticated generators and other equipment.
They had launched a raid unheralded disguised in worksuits as illegal miners. Little did the miners themselves know they had police in their midst with guns hidden on their belts.
In the aftermath, over hundred generators were confisticated, some burnt. When I went over to the area in the evening, I witnessed a burnt out wreckage of a truck from previous raids.
To the illegal miners and everyone down the chain, DMR officers are considered uncouth, brutal and inconsiderate.
They break and burn generators. They carry away valuable tools and machinery like jackhammers. They burn down trucks and cars on site. They arrest and detain miners. Some go for months without coming back.
They come heavily armed firing rubber bullets. A considerable number of people have been maimed and broken limps running helter-skelter cornered by DMR.
Reportedly one miner fell and rolled over a mine dump to low depths breaking a leg and an arm in the process. DMR could not lay their hands on him first.
He had to call for backup of friends to rescue him. An ambulance had to fetch him on site for emergency medical attention.
DMR personnel move in large numbers and have an immense show of force. Their modus operandi is discussed with a modicum of fear.
It is the South African State enforcing the law against illegal mining.
As I left Limpopo, I had a sense of panic and hopelessness. Panic for the way the tunnels are burrowed. In the event of a collapse, no man will make it out alive through the small hole on the wall that is the entrance at the Black Chrome site.
I had an unconfirmed fear of jackhammer teams hitting on some trapped dangerous gases underground poisoning everyone around. It is such a fertile imagination I guess.
When I shuffled into the hole, my mind raced back to the world famous story of 62 Chilean miners who were rescued through a cage after days trapped underground.
I have a phobia for heights and closed spaces naturally.
My hopelessness came from fact that most of my fellow countrymen on site are coughing. There seems to be a perennial flu bug and it catches up with one as soon as they set foot in the mountains.
There is heavy coughing and runny noses. I am not a medical fundi but my instincts point to exposure to dieases like TB, back problems and a gamut of chest infections. My people are for too long exposed to the vagaries of neglect for money. And there is a possibility of something medically grotesque.
Each miner i have had a chat with openly admits is tough work but they have no choice. The common thread was none of them planned to stay for long. They were all eager to raise a bit of money and leave. It is a disheartening time for these Zimbabweans as they know things may get worse before it gets better, the politics back home is unrelenting.
One can make an average of R700 or a little over a thousand on a good night of shunting the chrome from the tunnel and using wheelbarrows downhill which takes another half-day to complete a sale.
Most illegal miners have left jobs from as far afield as Joburg, Pretoria and Tzaneen for Burgersfort’ s mountains.
I have seen men that come over for work during the week and travel to be with their families on weekends in far flung places. Some have no lodgings near and choose to sleep and rest in the mountainous vicinity of the tunnel.
The entrance to the mountain teems with Zimbabwean women hawkers some with babies on their backs selling cooked food, soft drinks and alcohol at insanely inflated prices.
It is brisk business so they say as miners have little time for the shops in the distance. Water is a challenge in the semi-urban Moihook neighborhood in the vicinity of the mountain.
Many households have either boreholes or Jojo water tanks to capture community water pumped twice a week.
Enterprising families have resorted to selling water in bucket loads illegal miners in dire straits.
Drinking water is precious like gold dust here. Bathing is down a river in the distance at which many miners have been robbed of their cash and phones by goons.
The river passes near another legal mine in the area.
It remains to be seen to what extent will the illegal mining continue. Undoubtedly though, it involves an intricate web of political heavyweights and businesspeople who wield so much financial muscle and influence. It is also clear the profits are spectacular.
