The clampdown on illegal mining cut off food and water to hundreds of miners underground. At least 78 bodies were pulled from a mining shaft this week, and more are believed to remain underground.

The prospectors were trapped underground for months as police, on orders from South Africa’s government, attempted to starve them out.

South African police ended a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine on Wednesday and said they believe they have brought out all the survivors and retrieved all the bodies after hundreds of miners were trapped for months in one of the country's deepest mines while working illegally.