South Africa accused of ‘horrific’ crackdown as 78 corpses pulled from besieged mine

At least 78 illegal miners have been pulled out dead from a South African mine where police blocked food and water supplies for months in what trade unions described as a “horrific” state crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.

A total of 78 bodies and 166 survivors — some of them emaciated and disorientated — have been hauled out so far in a court-ordered rescue operation that began on Monday, with hundreds more men still stuck two kilometres below the surface in a gold mine at Stilfontein...