The government is trying to starve more than 1,000 informal prospectors out of a shaft of the Buffelsfontein mine, which police say extends some 8,000 feet below ground.

South African police were in a standoff on Thursday with hundreds of illegal miners believed to be underground in a disused shaft, a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to "smoke them out".

An estimated 4,000 illegal gold miners are hiding underground in South Africa after the government cut off food and water in an effort to "smoke them out" and arrest them. The miners have been in a mineshaft in Stilfontein,