Ndumisa works at another mine in the mine and surfaced last month, before the current standoff.
He is now waiting to see how the situation unfolds before deciding whether to return.
The standoff followed the government’s decision to crack down on an industry that has gotten out of control and is run by mafia groups.
“The country has been battling the scourge of illegal mining for years, with mining communities bearing the brunt of peripheral criminal activities such as rape, robbery and damage to public infrastructure, among others,” said Mikateka Makhlaule, chairman of the parliamentary committee. on mineral resources.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the mine was a “crime scene” but police were negotiating with the miners to end the standoff rather than going down to arrest them.
“Law enforcement has information that some of the miners may be well-armed. It is well established that illegal miners are being recruited by criminal gangs and are part of wider organized crime syndicates,” he added.
Ndumisa was among hundreds of thousands of workers – both locals and citizens of neighboring states such as Lesotho – who have been laid off as South Africa’s mining industry has declined over the past three decades. Many of them turned into “zama zamas” in abandoned mines.
South Africa-based Benchmark Foundation researcher David van Wyk, who has studied the industry, said there are about 6,000 abandoned mines in the country.
“While they are not profitable for large-scale industrial mining, they are profitable for small-scale mining,” he said. BBC Focus on Africa podcast.
Ndumisa said he used to work as a drill operator earning less than $220 (£175) a month at a gold mining company until he was made redundant in 1996.
After being unable to find full-time work for the next 20 years due to South Africa’s staggering unemployment rate, he said he decided to become an illegal miner.
There are tens of thousands of illegal miners in South Africa, and Mr Van Wyk says there are around 36,000 in Gauteng province alone – the country’s economic heartland, where gold was first discovered in the 19th century.
“Zama zamas often spend months underground without ever surfacing, and are heavily dependent on outside assistance for food and other essentials. It’s hard and dangerous work,” said a report by the campaign group Global Initiative Against Transnacional Organized Crime.
“Some carry pistols, shotguns and semi-automatic weapons to protect themselves from rival gangs of miners,” the report added.
Ndumisa told the BBC that he did have a gun, but he also paid his gang a monthly “protection fee” of about $8.
Its well-armed guards repel threats, especially from Lesotho’s gangs, which have more lethal firepower, he said.
Under 24-hour gang protection, Ndumisa said he used dynamite to blast rocks and rudimentary tools such as a pick, shovel and chisel to find the gold.
He gives most of what he finds to the gang leader, who pays him a minimum of $1,100 every two weeks. He said he managed to keep some of the gold he sells on the black market to supplement his income.
He was one of the lucky miners to have such an arrangement, he said, explaining that others were kidnapped and taken to the mine to work as slaves, with no pay or gold.
