The prospectors were trapped underground for months as police, on orders from South Africa’s government, attempted to starve them out.

First responders pulled dozens of bodies and hundreds of emaciated survivors from an abandoned gold mine this week, bringing a grisly end to a months-long standoff with illegal miners and their families.

The South African government has launched a rescue operation at an abandoned gold mine in the country’s North West province, where at least 109 men have died, a group representing the miners said, after local authorities cut off vital supplies in a dramatic bid to crack down on the country’s illegal mining trade.