DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

Rescue operations involving volunteers under way in Stilfontein amid reports that hundreds are still trapped underground.

Two men have been pulled out from an abandoned gold mine in South Africa after a court ordered the police to lift a blockade and allow the rescue of hundreds of workers believed to be involved in “illegal” mining activities.

Rescue operations involving volunteers were under way on Sunday in Stilfontein, southwest of the executive capital Pretoria, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Haru Mutasa, reporting from the site.

The rescued men were visibly weakened as they emerged from the mine with the help of volunteers. Others are reportedly too weak to be rescued.

Mutasa said it could take up to 45 minutes for the volunteers to rescue one person from the mining shaft.

“Police are seen guarding the entrance to the abandoned mine, and they said that they are here to ensure that there are no criminal activities,” she said, noting that activists have been demanding that officers leave the area.

Authorities had earlier blocked the mine’s entrance, cutting the supply of food and water to those inside, in what police described as “a crackdown” on alleged illegal mining. The move, however, caused outrage among rights groups and labour organisations.

“It is despicable that we have to have this kind of conversation about what to do in the situation involving poor, Black, weakened working-class people,” Mametlwe Sebei, a human rights lawyer, told Al Jazeera.

“They are in very hazardous and in very horrific conditions,” Sebei said, urging for the workers’ safe return.

Mzukisi Jam, of the South African National Civic Organisation, told Al Jazeera that while his group welcomed the court order, it was “disappointed” that the government had to be compelled legally to take action to save workers’ lives.

Amid pressure from rights groups, police called in experts to assess the safety of the mine shafts to help decide if officers could carry out a forced evacuation. But the order by the court in Pretoria effectively ruled out that option, as it obliged the police to remove the blockade and permit the exit of the trapped miners.

Earlier this week, a resident claimed there were about 4,000 miners underground. Police said the figure was probably in the hundreds, adding that the miners faced arrest if they came to the surface.

On Thursday, a body was brought out of the mine.

Thandeka Zizi Tom, the sister of a trapped miner, told Al Jazeera that her brother should have been back by now. “We are panicking. We don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.

On Wednesday, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, a minister in the presidency, told reporters the government did not intend to step in.

“Honestly, we’re not sending help to criminals, we’re going to smoke them out. They will come out,” she said, with her comments drawing sharp criticism from the opposition and rights groups.

Since a police operation was launched to force miners out of the shaft, more than 1,170 people have resurfaced, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe told reporters last week.

In a separate interview with Al Jazeera, Mathe said authorities have information “that some of the illegal miners were heavily armed”.

Thousands of miners, many of them hailing from other countries, are said to be illegally operating abandoned mine shafts in mineral-rich South Africa.