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

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 advocates and community leaders call the tactics inhumane.

South Africa's government says it won't help a group of illegal miners inside a closed mine in the country's North West province who have been denied access to basic supplies as part of an official strategy against illegal mining.