Zama Zamas: The Deep Abuses of South Africa’s Illegal Mining Industry
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- Uncover the dark reality of South Africa's abandoned gold mines, once the world's largest producers. Explore the perilous world of "Zama Zamas," illegal miners, and the alarming impact on communities. Watch now!
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As a South African, I want to make crystal clear that the Zama-Zamas are not victims. I acknowledge they don't have access to proper jobs, and if they want to turn to a life of crime, do so in your own country. Don't come into South Africa illegally, and harass and threaten South African communities. Half of our own youth are unemployed, SA certainly hasn't got jobs for the entire African continent. We are on the brink of total economic collapse ourself
Well said mate.
Came here to say the same thing. They most definitely do have a choice.
Thank you for educating and correcting the PROPAGANDA about SA
US take notes on this
I’m a construction labourer and have worked in some really rural areas with these guys when they aren’t busy with their usual nonsense. You are absolutely correct they are not victims. Compactor? Stolen. Generators? Also stolen. Shovels, pickaxe, hammers? Stolen. At some point they started a fire around where we were working and still nobody knows if it was intentional or not. They are not here to be peaceful, they’re here to just take from South Africa be it resources or whatever. Zama zamas are criminal syndicates 100%.
The background music has been way too loud lately. It's distracting and makes it hard to hear what Simon is saying. Please turn it down a notch. 😇
The music is annoying
100% agree
Yeah, just turn it off entirely. Very distracting.
I'd say cut the music volume by 30%.
Very!
I live in South Africa and I live very near to the mine dumps in my area. . I can tell you horror stories about what happens at the squatter camp that they live in near these mine dumps. Some days we hear gun shots every night when they are fighting with each other or the other residents of the camp. Some nights are quiet. We've heard some explosions coming from that area when they use dynamite or other chemicals to blast underground. Sometimes when things are really bad we get warnings that residents need to stay away from that area and to not use roads around that area until the police have secured the area. A major electrical substation in my area is starting to sink into the ground because the ground has become unstable from all of their digging. Unless someone lives here in my country they will have no true idea of the destruction that these people cause
holy shit bro these people need stopped, just finding this out in the usa
@@jonmickley6979 Same, seems the entire world needs to shut down immigration till we all calm down.
I went straight to the comment to find the other South Africans. My uncle is part of the twisted groups that liquidate those old mines.
@@loganlemonslice6911 what do you mean by liquidate?
@@jonmickley6979why not stop your oligarchs then westerner, they are the ones who own half of the corporations in South Africa and their shares,yet westerners will obviously need their cheap slave labour products from them obviously,guess ignorance of the world around your people surely is there
Interesting how rhis makes it seem like the Zama Zamas are victims. But they are the aggressors towards those doing legal mining.
Thank you
You know nothing
Yeah this video is bullshit. Illegal immigrants trespassing private land and mining illegally are not victims. Your pronunciations are all wrong and your "facts" are wrong. Pathetic
@@rdolamo4240 you do realize entire gang wars are fought over control of these mines. these areas are literally more dangerous than almost any other place in South Africa. they use illegal firearms. shoot police on sight and occasionally take part in human trafficking to bolster their labor. you know nothing, and if you defend them you are the definition of ignorant
Simon, your editor on this chanel is ruining it. Please stop with the overly loud and annoying music. It is not contributing but distracting.
Seems like the editor is trying to showcase his music
I agree, on all the channels too. We want to listen to you Simon
These Zama Zamas are also responsible for a lot of crime in the areas that they operate in. They also enter mines that are closed / condemned. They cause shafts to cave in.
Informal settlements are also on the edge of urban areas.
the music is so off lately. Sometimes it’s loud and confusing for what’s being covered, other times it is so quite its not noticeable. Or we get like around 5:00 a techno tribute why things on screen talk about Rape…. I mean who has done the music the last 2 weeks on this channel? It’s not been taken into effect. I see lots of comments about the music too. How can Simons team not? Please get a grip on what’s being covered and what music is SUITABLE FOR THE TOPIC. 💜
I thought I was the only one who noticed...
I work in one of the areas where they operate. The people guiding them in those operations are so heavily armed with illegal firearms that every police officer in the area is scared to go into their "territory".
They may present themselves as the victims, but they are not.
As a south African, The moment I saw Zama Zama, I came running
Lol..me too
😂 me 3
Me too
same here boet!
Same here.
Fellow South Africans so glad Simon covers these
Was I the only one who read that in Cyril's voice?
@@ghaznavid 🤣🤣🤣
Imagine a westerner talking about your country instead of your own people who are obviously looted by the same westerners in the first place, your country's corporations are corrupt owned by the west under the IMF so westerners like these will obviously talk about it yet won't actually change anything about their colonial oligarchs
No joke bro i swear....... PTSD from 21 day lockdown days😂😂😂😂😂😂
Lesotho is pronounced "Le- soo- too". The "h" is Lesotho is silent and not pronounced.
Nee fok I was wondering what Simon was saying
So funny 😂
He has said it like that in other videos too. Needs to read the comments section
Could use some better sound mixing, but otherwise, the videos are as good as usual.
Now, this is very interesting. Simon, you should have done your homework before doing a video about something you don't have a clue about.
O, wait, you are following the global narrative and not the truth.
As someone fighting Zama-Zama's actively for certain mining companies, to make the legal mining areas safe for the legal mine workers to operate. I do know a thing or two about these Zama-Zama's.
They are well-funded and are armed with a huge cache of weapons. They have mounds of illegal explosives like AMFO and not dynamite. These explosives are stolen from other mines in certain mining areas and supplied to them. No idea of health and safety regulations. They are not mining engineers, they just know how to follow the reef. Thus causing the deaths of their fellow Zama-Zama's through normally, predictable outcomes if they were miners with training.
Also, I don't know where you came up with the idea of gold nuggets, seems like you also don't know the Geology of South African Gold, Black reef, and so on. Then I can also elaborate on the environmental disasters emanating from the illegal chemical processes followed by Zama-Zama's to extract the gold from the material they have mined. Poisoning waterways even more than they are.
The guys doing the work are nothing less than pawns for a higher-up making money out of it.
Zama-Zama's that are doing the actual mining are working for around $7 a day per person for their overlords. The so-called "protection" needs to be paid. The couriers (smuggelers) and the buyer's fees.
I am not sure where your figures are coming from. These overlords are high-placed party leaders and are making millions of $ for these party leaders to fund their lavish lifestyles.
It's nothing more than most of the illegal activities like Cash in transit robberies, ATM bombings, and illicit cigarette smuggling in South Africa. The overlords behind it are not criminal gangs in the normal way, it's parties.
Thus it won't be prevented only managed to make more money off the backs of their "Brother's" shoulders doing the dirty and dangerous work.
This seems to be more accurate!!!!
He actually has a south African writer, Elsa or Eliza something. Furthermore this video was not for South Africans to consume. All you've have mentioned is way out of the scope of this video.
Read the title 😅. The "abuses". The context is actually spot on. Also this is not really a news channel. What warographics instead.b
Anyways 2 months till election's we can vote for more effective leadership with political will to face the protection of our natural & more importantly our human resources with absolute vindication
Okay not sure about Eliza but Emma the writer is South African. Still lives here too I think.
This is my experience with them too.
Music too loud, can barely understand the video
was like a rave party was going on in the mines
Agree. No need for music!
Lol if you don’t understand what he’s saying then you need to listen VOA learning English otherwise
@@mzee5533 spam your backhanded ads elsewhere 😊
Im a South African and geologist, and thisbis not quite true. Poverty does drive this illegal industry but has also been going for tens of years. The mines are often not abondones in some cases either.
Please do more research.
South Africa is truly a country on the brink of collapse. I wonder what could have caused this?
the cANCer
ANC
The greedy and the corrupt
If anyone wants to see this as a news story done by a brilliant South African news station, go watch the story carte blance did on this. It's on youtube too. They were chased away by armed zama zamas. Also, they are slowly putting the whole infrastructure of the city of Johannesburg in danger of collapse.
Nuh, were here to watch Simon
@KillEmAllContent what do you think I'm doing here🤣
But a 30 minute video on it is a bit more in depth, alongside actual footage of how it looks around and inside the mines
We were in Gauteng a couple months ago. The amount of sinkholes though😱😱😱
Why is the background music so loud lately. It's really hard to enjoy the videos like this
Southern Africa (Botswana, Namibia 🇳🇦, South Africa 🇿🇦, Eswatini 🇸🇿 and Lesotho 🇱🇸) are the 🐐’s of Gold/Diamonds distribution in the World 🌍
Used to be... Gold game is over for SA. It's now 9th in the world
South Africa, w000t. Its unfair to say the police do nothing about it, they are very busy people, there lots of nothings that they have to do nothing about all the time. And if it doesn't come with kentucky fried chicken, it it even worth looking into?
South African here: zama zama's are only the tip of the iceberg; the problem goes all the way to the top and foreign governments.
fish stinks from the head down
Dude sorry but what the hell is this music. Talking about the horrors of what is happening there. And meanwhile the music is 🎵🕺😁
And the sound overpowering what Simon is saying. Like 5 different genres of music being way too loud over a supposed serious video. Made it very difficult to focus on the video.
There's always a human rights violation when precious metals are being found and excavated. People shouldn't be surprised about this fact.
Always? More like only where western colonizers are around
This sounds like a great premise for a Discovery Channel show
Yeah, but I don't think you're going to get Mike Rowe to narrate it.
Loud background music, as a way to get a lot of comments, for the algorithm… Clever? 👀🤷♂️
This video does not do just to the extent of the Zama Zama issue. It paint the picture of Zama Zamas being victims. The truth is the violence and carnage left by the Zamas Zamas is horrendous. The Zama Zamas are heavily armed (with plenty of videos on social media showing this) are willing to engage in gun battles with police and private security. These gun battles aren't a once in a while occurance. In some communities, it is reported to occur on a weakly basis.
Law abiding residents are often terrorised by Zama Zamas with some resident reporting openings to illegal mining tunnels being in basically their backyards and Zama Zamas stealing water and electricty from them via illegal connections.
The state is by and large out manned and out gunned do to management incompitence, corruption, and cadre deployment, which has resulted in budget cuts to the police force.
Oh and in the case of the models s3xu@l assault = r@p3.
I stay in in Riverlea 😮and they shoot every night there was shooting a few hours ago ..thanks for your video
Weird music choice.
As a South African, let me tell you. What is happening here is terrifying.
It's almost like south Africa has become a failed state or something.
i had to double check if my rocket league music was on during this video
Is simon a background for the music now ?
Hey Simon and team, thank you for your incredible content!
Just one note - it would be awesome if you guys checked how pronounce names and places before filming... I know some are quite challenging, but others are very easy to say and it would make your videos seem more credible.
Examples from this video include Lesotho, which is actually pronounced leh*soo*too, and Witwatersrand, which is vit*vah*ters*rah*nd (that one is a little confusing😅). Another South African name I've heard mispronounced on the channel is the president's - it's Cyril Rah*mah*poh*za, not Rama*fo*za.
Hope this helps! Keep up the great work!
Is your editor a rave enthusiast? I didn’t make it more than five minutes into this.😂
you should do one about the radioactivity in those mining areas, the dust around those mine dumps are lethal
Sound volumes are way off
The music do not suit a good history telling!
I live in Krugersdorp. We have Zama Zama active very near our house, on the other side of a special needs school.
Last Friday sounded like New Year’s Eve because of a gun fight 50 - 100m away from us in the other direction.
Police were there, but they were to scared to intervene 🫠
Yeah it's scary especially driving on that road to Randfontein , my uncle does security work for the mines around there , so many innocent people killed because of these Zamas
I remember we used to hear digging underneath our house , you would hear voices coming underground and the government dismissed our complaints as Soweto residents for years. Now we experience earthquakes/tremours almost every month in Johannesburg 😢
As many others have said before, as many others will continue to say until it's rectified:
Turn down the damned music.
And please dont play EDM when discussing topics like rape and extortion, it's just wrong.
Considering the risk involved, I've never quite understood the level of desperation it takes to get into illegal mining in South Africa until I heard what they could potentially earn. $1500 in two weeks is the equivalent of R60k p/m salary in South Africa. For context, that salary would put you in the top 10% of earners in the country. To think, I spent 3 years down the road from Witwatersrand getting a degree when I should have just picked up an axe and torch instead
WHAT?!? I have a Hons degree from RAU and I don't earn a third of that!!! Can someone drop me a pin to one of these mines? ;-)
But seriously, they won't stop them cause the top notch officials gets to much money behind the scenes... and hide them in couches.
You'd have been a slave down in the mines for the kingpins. Miners have to pay for the "opportunity" to mine and usually get given a job if they pay the money owed back to the kingpins. The miners then get exploited and abused by the kingpins who only know how to threaten, assault and murder. Carte Blanche has done numerous stories about illegal mining here on youtube, go give them a watch.
@@flipster7285 Oeps, I meant it sarcastically ;-)
But I'm a geologist from Jo'burg and I know some of the cast from Carte Blanche. The last Zama shoot was terrifying. Sad that it won't ever be stopped.
Gold mining activities in South Africa resulted in contamination of residential environment with uranium-rich wastes from mine tailings.
Health of the people living around the mine tailings could be affected by uranium exposure due to its hazardous chemotoxic and radiological properties.
The mining of gold South Africa has brought a large concentration of uranium to the surface.
In South Africa, about six million kilograms of uranium were brought to the surface and disposed off onto slime dams
Thank you.
i genuinely can't watch this with the overpowering music volume. i get it, shit happens, and sometimes youtube messes up the audio upon uploading, or editors can make a simple mistake that gets missed, but regardless i really hope yall can edit/repost the video with proper sound mixing, cuz this is a really important topic and really needs to be shared, and according to the comments it appears a ton of people are also having to just skip the video entirely because of this issue
The music was so distracting and did not fit the content being talking about at all.
Like you're talking about people spilling blood over gold and you've got funky techno beats banging away twice as loudly as they should be.
Ou don't forget a thing called loadshedding that stuff messed up bro
35000 sq km is about 13500 sq mi, not 17600. If something so easily checked is wrong, now I have to wonder about the rest of the facts presented.
Oh, almost everything in this is incorrect.
A magnitude 3.5 earthquake rocked the southern most part of Joburg late last year. Set alarms off, Wal art fell. Light fixtures fell. Cracks developed on buildings. Caused a real scare. I was gutted when I found out it was caused by illegal mining activities. The whole country is falling prey to corruption and criminal activities. The ANC has failed us.
Well done Emma. Cheers from Tennessee
Exactly the same feelback, i m cuting the video there at 2 mins it s just not hearable
Cut the music. It kinda ruins simons delivery
Police and doing nothing in south Africa is what describes our justice system the best
It sounds as though South Africa has failing infrastructure and insufficient police presence to control the activities documented here.
In other news, the South Pole is cold. Sarcasm aside, yes - very much so. We had protesters blocking the entrance to my work and demanding jobs - the police station is 500m away, but they refused to intervene because their only police vehicle was being used and they can't come to sort it out in non-marked vehicles. When I had my phone stolen at knife point, the police didn't want to open a criminal case because it was apparently petty theft and not armed robbery - so it was a minor crime, even though the robber had literally held a knife against my neck. I once saw a story where the police refused to open a case where a woman was kidnapped and raped because she didn't get the license plate of the vehicle she was forced into - so my own stories are trivial compared to some out there. These stories have become normal for us in South Africa.
I am so sorry. As far as this US citizen is concerned, your nation was better off under the government that was so widely condemned by the UN.
@@user-lb4yp4sl4y that government used to break up protests by indiscriminately shooting civilians, so I wouldn't go that far. But SA needs some proper strong leadership at the moment - our last good president was Thabo Mbeki 15 years ago.
@@ghaznavid Thanks so much for your comments. The news media in my nation (the US) provides so little in the way of comprehensive and objective analysis I greatly prefer to hear from people who are there and are witnessing events.
@@user-lb4yp4sl4y Yeah the country was better, for certain people.
Anyone know the name of the music played at the end?
What is this with that music in back round? It"s very annoying!
Imagine leaving your country to do illegal work and then claiming you’re a victim when the authorities show up
Welcome to South Africa 🇿🇦 Money is power
I live in Riverlea and the turf war had become a huge problem in 2023 but it isn't as big a deal as it was before, it still happens but the police presence has definitely curtailed some of the operations, but beside the zama zamas there is a huge CIT(cash in transit) heist issue all over South Africa but that is beside the point, there was a time last year where you would hear gunshots ringing in the distance and there was a few times when a cache of corpses had been discovered in a field around Riverlea a majority of these were Illegal miners some were gang related, that and the community concerns spurred the police into throwing their might into solving the issue and I am quite frankly surprised to see Simon and his team covering this issue, but at the time of writing this comment it's been quiet at least in Riverlea but I'm not sure about other places.
Keep up the good work
I lived in Barberton where there is a full-on war between Xmas and ex military going into mines to try get rid of them now I live in Germiston and we regularly hear gunshots - once it was taxis, and the other times it was Zamas and Zamas, or police and Zamas. Crime in our country has destroyed it... From the top to the bottom... God help us 🙏🙏❤️
Do an episode on the congo cobolt trade fueling the ev car "green" revololution. Kids get less than a dollar a day. They also get shot in the back if they try and sell their bag of cobolt ore to anyone other than the people onsite.
Yet again, the music is *horrendously* inappropriate for the serious subject matter. Whoever thought techno was the right choice for narration about models being r-worded needs to be fired. Or, as I’m increasingly suspicious of, if you’re just using AI to do all the background music, you need to cut that shit out and just use existing royalty-free tracks picked out by an actual human being who understands the gravity of the material covered here and can pick music that expresses the appropriate tone.
Ah that's why AI. I seriously questioned why someone did techno music in a video about dark things.
You should visit, @Simon
Music is SO LOUD please Simon, your video production quality was so much better in the past?
What lies. I've worked for 3 gold mines and one chrome mine. Zama Zamas are not victims man, stop spreading lies Mr Whistler. Your shows have been sub-par of late and this is just a blatant lie.
Zama Zamas go into abandoned or unrehabilitated land that still has ore but is no longer profitable for large companies.
I've worked in the Sudan where Zama Zamas (artisan miners) there and the concept actually works. They are legally mining and the government buys the gold from them so they actually get paid. The difference off course is that, South Africa's mining industry is more advanced than Sudan.
South African Zama Zamas choose to go mine illegally without permits. They are a cartel really, because someone has to buy the gold or whatever else mineral from them.
Oh this is gonna be hard to watch
"Abba Zabba, you my only friend"
LoL Half Baked movie
🤣
Put that music down to well under 10%
Tell us, if South Africa was the richest country in gold and minerals, why is it one of the poorest people in the world?😢😢
Wow, when I heard people say SA is on the brink of collapse I didn’t know they were being so literal.
$1500 in two weeks, min wage is about $250 a month in SA so half a year’s wages.
Tip: The Ws in Witswatersrand are pronunced as Vs Simon since the word isn't English it's Afrikaans.
But love the videos, been a fan since the early days when you used to do Top 10s on your other channels.
Simon, please sort out the background music.
What is an open pit tunnel?
Im neighbor's of southafrica, and we have a biscuit its caled zama zama, its hard as hell, its probably made ou of bricks, but its really famous and old.
Can’t blame colonisation this time
Indirectly we can. This is what happens to people who've had generations of the land and wealth taken from them by western countries. For centuries the west has decimated most of Africa and every time you use things like your phone or buy a bracelet just remember that these people are what's left after the big boys have left town - this is what happens when colonisation has left and only corruption is left behind.
@@bunyipdragon9499 Complete rubbish! Zuma's anc stole more from South Africans the British Empire ever did.
@@darkgalaxy5548 I didn't say anything about the British specifically. Also I'm talking about how powerful countries (esp western countries) have behaved in the last 50 plus yrs. or so
@@bunyipdragon9499let's be honest we africans never had much wealth to begin with we measured it by live stock
Use Simon's voice as a ducking source for the background music.
It is *very* easy to do and the mix will be *way better.*
Man how many RUclips channels do you have?
I know right? Seen another one called places. Thought it was something else? Got confused there's many
Very sad and not good 😢
Funny enough yesterday I took a taxi (Minibus) from work filled to the brim with zamazamas. For a moment I was scared but realized they are people trying to make a living. So I ended up having a fairly good ride. The only problem was the stench, the guys smelled like they haven't taken a bath in a year. Overall, the taxi dropped them to their shack, and we continued with the journey.
I'm surprised we still have goldin the city...
Hey Simon. Can you do something like “Artographics”? Would be nice. I like to hear you speak man. Like a teacher I had in school once. Made me the best grades. Something with Art and design. Would be nice.. ❤
As someone who lives close to a Zama-Zama mine entrance. These are NOT victims. You are making it sound like they are. They are criminals, they are not above commiting murder, home invasion, theft and more.
For those who doubt it and want to point I am wrong. I emplore you, go live close to one of their illegal mines, like many South Africans. When you can't stand the constant gun fire and fear of them invading your home. Then you will understand my and many South Africans' point.
Not sure what happened to your audio. Maybe have a word with your editor . Also Zama zamas are not victims....
I never understood mankind's fascination with gold.
It's not just cool looking, it does not oxidize and has very low electrical resistance, among other very important uses, it's in your cell phone your computer your TV etc, platinum rubidium etc are super important as well as they are used as catalysts in many processes used to make many products, actually platinum group metal's are worth much more than gold
Thanks for this. As a South African police officer, one hardly hears a balanced take on the plight of the miners in the Witwatersrand.
For the record, Lesotho is easier to pronounce than one might assume: 'Le-soo-too' will do.
I for one am interested in hearing the police officer's perspective/side... Please tell us more. Because it's true what you say... The reports are skewed in favour of those who control the narrative.
@matshepo_s Unfortunately, regulations forbid my stating my opinion in an official capacity. However, in this instance, there is actually no inside knowledge to be found. The narrative one sees in the mainstream media prevails into my profession. In the interests of arriving at a solution to any issue, it is illuminating to have this clearer insight into the circumstances of those perpetuating 'illegal' mining.
It would take super man to stack gold bricks like that.
Witwatersrand is pronounced "Vit-Vaters-Runt". It means 'White water's edge' :)
Yoh bro, this channel is basically a did you know page about south Africa
Lesotho is pronounced le-soo-too.
Crazy how some background music can make one of your favourite channels to watch irritating instead.
Great work as always. Please feel free to contact me if you need better help with the correct pronunciation of South African words!
Google Johannesburg underground explosion and see for yourself the horrors we experience in this God forsaken country, all because of corruption and lawlessness.
With that gold SA should have a gold backed currency
Into The Shadows videos do not need ANY music.
EGoli...place of gold....was always going to be a honeycomb, above and below....one of the only 100% landlocked capitol cities in ze world! Her history is might, dark, and not yet quite done...
Zama zamas love that life like paras you help them out they go back
This report is not accurate. Most Working, active mines have groups of "zama zama" occupants working old stopes; but its not correct that the mine itself is abandoned. In many cases, not. Confrontation (sometimes armed) between Mine security services and SAP is not uncommon. I still have relations on these mines: The Zamas are known to stay underground for months at a time. LEGAL mine employees, and others, smuggle supplies to them and provide many services: such as alcohol, tobacco and prostitution. (at extortionate prices)
In Addition: The Zamas are NOT persecuted as an ongoing policy; they appear to be tolerated and have little trouble selling their produce to willing buyers on the surface. It's a highly organised, corrupt form of mining in which all the pesky safety and health rules can be ignored. Its corrupt from the top down. Police take a soft approach, because in many places they are bribed or are in on the deal.
This is the first time I can say “this is utter nonsense”.
The majority of “Zama zama’s” are illegal immigrants, from Zimbabwe and Mozambique. They are illegally entering closed down mines, trying to mine scraps. Yes, they work in extremely dangerous conditions, as there are no safety measures, they are digging down to abandoned shafts, where dangerous gases have built back up and the danger of rock falls are ever present. As quick as they are arrested, more illegal immigrants take their place. It’s dangerous to police, not just from having to enter the mine, but also due to the ZZ’s being well armed and organised.
Furthermore, I spent a good portion of my youth, during the 1970’s and 1980’s, on the townships. Yes, apartheid was wrong. But everyone had a job, a roof other their heads and a full stomach. Transport to and from work was free. And the contents of their brick and mortar houses was far better/upper class than my own house.
Those still working in legal mining are paid above average salaries and fill posts at all levels. One lady I know, remotely operates large tipper lorries that are deep underground, while she sits before a computer in an air conditioned office above ground.
The Witwatersrand has been aware of the precarious situation, with possible sink holes/collapsing ground, for the last fifty years at least. It’s no difference to the potential dangers of living in San Francisco etc.
At the mine I used to work in, I used to trade with them bateries for cananis they do not care about money, they only want batteries, food and water, some Zamas are even born down there and spend their entire lives down there