{"id":46388,"date":"2013-10-16T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/?p=46388"},"modified":"2013-10-17T11:26:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T09:26:56","slug":"primroses-illegal-miners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/news-headlines\/2013\/10\/16\/primroses-illegal-miners\/","title":{"rendered":"Primrose’s illegal miners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to the help of a Primrose resident, the GCN has uncovered an illegal mining operation.<\/p>\n

The mining site is located behind a park, on the corner of Pine and Wit streets, in Marlands.<\/p>

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GCN journalists visited the area to investigate, on Wednesday, and found a total of 15 illegal miners hard at work.<\/p>\n

The men, who are all believed to be Mozambican, currently reside in the Jerusalem and Angelo informal settlements, in Boksburg, and have been mining at the Marlands site, undetected, for a number of months.<\/p>

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When asked what they hope to find in the soil surrounding the site, one of the miners said: “We find gold in the soil.”<\/p>\n

The men on this site realise what they are doing is illegal, but say they “would rather mine illegally to try and make a living, than steal from others”.<\/p>\n

This operation is destroying the environmentand the miners are putting their own safety and health at risk, due to the fact that they use water filled with sewage from a continuous sewage leak in the area for their mining <\/span>operationsand<\/span> they are digging deep holes, which could lead to the injury of themselves or other people walking through the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

The matter has been brought to the attention of the Primrose police.<\/p>\n

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