The police have cut off food and water to miners for weeks in a bid to force them out of an abandoned mine. Human rights activists and community leaders call the tactics inhumane.

Officials are blocking access to basic supplies for hundreds of people underground in a northwest mine shaft as part of a crackdown on miners.

Several hundred people are believed to remain in an illegal mine in South Africa after the government cut off vital supplies and refused to help them, in a dramatic bid to crack down on the industry.