\n<\/p>\n
Along with about 600 other men, Ndumiso lives and works in a small gang-controlled “town” – complete with markets and a red light district – that has grown up deep underground at a disused gold mine in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Ndumiso told the BBC that after being laid off by a big mining firm, he decided to join the gang in its underground world to become what is known as a “zama zama”, an illegal miner.<\/p>\n
He digs for the precious metal and surfaces every three months or so to sell it on the black market for a huge profit, earning more than he ever did before – though the risks now are far higher.<\/p>\n
“The underground life is ruthless. Many do not make it out alive,” said the 52-year-old, who spoke to the BBC on condition that his real name was not used as he feared reprisals.<\/p>\n
“In one level of the shaft there are bodies and skeletons. We call that the zama-zama graveyard,” he said.<\/p>\n
But for those who survive, like Ndumiso, the job can be lucrative.<\/p>\n
While he sleeps on sandbags after back-breaking days underground, his family lives in a house he has bought in a township of the main city, Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
He made cash payments of 130,000 rand (about $7,000; \u00a35,600) for the one-bedroom house, which he has now extended to include another three bedrooms, he said.<\/p>\n
An illegal miner for about eight years, Ndumiso has managed to send his three children to fee-paying schools – one of whom is now in university.<\/p>\n
“I have to provide for my wife and children and this is the only way I know,” he said, adding that he preferred to toil underground rather than adding to the high crime rate by becoming a car-hijacker or robber, after spending many years trying to find legal work.<\/p>\n
His current job is at a mine in the small town of Stilfontein, around 90 miles (145km) south-west of Johannesburg, which is at the centre of global attention<\/a> after a government minister, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, promised to “smoke out” the hundreds of miners who were underground there, with the security forces preventing food and water from being sent down.<\/p>\n “Criminals are not to be helped. Criminals are to be persecuted,” Ntshavheni said.<\/p>\n A campaign group, The Society for the Protection of Our Constitution, has launched a court case to demand access to the mineshaft, which police say is about 2km (1.2 miles) deep.<\/p>\n The court has given an interim ruling, stating that food and other essentials could be delivered to the miners.<\/p>\n