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.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.

The authorities had at one point limited the miners’ access to food, water and other supplies in a blockade that drew criticism from human rights groups.

Arguing that the miners had entered the mine without permission, authorities reportedly cracked down by cutting off their access to food and water.

STILFONTEIN, South Africa (Reuters) -South African rescuers have pulled out 36 dead bodies and 82 survivors from a gold mine deep underground in two days of operations, police said on Tuesday, adding that the survivors would all face illegal mining and immigration charges.

One hundred and eighteen illegal miners have been extracted from the Stilfontein mine in South Africa on Monday and Tuesday as part of a rescue operation, of which 36 were certified as dead, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

Using a cage-like device, South African rescuers have brought at least 60 bodies and 92 survivors to the surface from one of the country's deepest mines.

At least 78 dead bodies have been pulled from an illegal gold mine in South Africa where police cut off food and water supplies for months, in what trade unions called a "horrific" crackdown on desperate people trying to eke out a living.