The press have repeatedly been denied access to speak to the hospitalised or imprisoned survivors of the Marikana mine riots, but since their release began this week, one miner in particular has found the courage to tell his story.

The Star reported today that one miner, who had been released from police custody this week, had described how miners were “shot for fun while down on their knees with their hands up in the air and begging for their lives”.

Lungisile Lutshetu told The Star he had personally witnessed the deaths and infliction of serious injury on at least 15 people. Of the injured, he said: “some of the injured [were] shot again in the head later and finished”.

Lutshetu had a terrible story to tell, and one that Greg Marinovich seemed to accurately report about last week based on evidence he found after the riots:

When everyone left the mountain towards the shacks where they live, I also joined those who went down the mountain at the back towards Marikana West, where we live. We did not walk far and saw people running back towards us because police had blocked their way, and suddenly shooting started on the other side of the koppie. We ran back to the koppie and there I found a hiding place between two large rocks, but then police were already all over the place. Those in front of me were shot at close range and fell over me, and that’s how my life was spared.

Of a Sotho man kneeling next to a big stone with his hands up, Lutshetu describes a horrific death:

He begged for his life and apologised profusely for something he didn’t know about, but heartless officers riddled him with automatic rifles, which pierced through his body. I remained still, with the dead and injured piling over and against me. Later they realised I was still alive and they pulled me out, ordered me to the ground and with others, we were asked to slither on our stomach towards a police Nyala. They screamed at a man who had been shot in the leg…to keep limping even after a bone fragment protruded through his leg. We spent about three hours lying on our stomachs. The unlucky ones who dared raise their heads were killed. [The police] boasted about how many people they have shot and how they still wanted to kill more. They were proud of what they were doing… My clothes were soaked in blood and they asked why I wasn’t dead, and all I could say was ‘sorry’, and I think my life was spared after paramedics arrived and asked them not to shoot the injured.

[Source: IOL]