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This piece was co-authored by Hassen Lorgat and Jan Morrill, Tailings Campaign Manager at Earthworks.
On September 11, 2021, a fatal tailings dam failure in the South African town of Jagersfontein released over 6 million cubic meters of toxic mine waste on the downstream communities of Charlesville and Itumeleng. Two years later, families from these towns are still demanding justice for the harms they have suffered in addition to calling for more transparency and information about the causes of the disaster.
The dam failure occurred in the early morning hours of the 11th. The tidal wave of mud that swept downstream killed two, with a third person missing to this day, and destroyed 164 homes as well as 1600 hectares of agricultural land.
The mine’s owner issued a statement immediately following the dam collapse declaring the facility “safe and secure,” but research carried out by the Bench Marks Foundation highlighted structural problems with the dam and documented repeated warnings from mine workers and community members that the dam was unstable. One worker was quoted as saying, “We were pumping too much slurry into the tailings dam, every hour and every day. On the Saturday night before the tailings broke (10 September 2022), we warned our supervisors three times to say that the tailings dam is going to break. But they said, ‘don’t worry, nothing will happen, go back to work.'” An academic review of data by two researchers from Witwatersrand University found that the mine built its tailings facility using “a construction sequence that is inconsistent with sound tailings management practices.”
The tailings dam that failed had been the focus of legal battles between mining companies claiming ownership of the facility in order to remine the waste for new profits. Remining recovers new metals and minerals from mine waste. The Jagersfontein failure has been highlighted as a cautionary tale of the risks of remining waste without the proper regulations and safeguards in place.
Despite the wide scale impacts, reparations and indemnification for impacted communities have been shockingly inadequate. On the one year mark of the disaster, local media reported “promises were made of temporary accommodation and food parcels, but the accommodation provided was 120 km away from the town, and the only evidence of food parcels provided for the community was a daily provision of oranges, dumped by the side of the road in Charlesville.” Houses are still being constructed for families impacted by the failure. There have been complaints about the size, layout and inappropriate location of the construction.
Despite the extensive impact, reparations and compensation for affected communities have been woefully inadequate.
As a result, community members from Charlesville and Itumeleng have organized to protect their rights. After submitting their demands in writing twice without any resolution from the mining company or the government, communities organized a protest in late August 2024 to reiterate their demands publicly. Among other issues, they are calling for:
- the mining company to take full responsibility for the death and destruction caused by the failure,
- the complete removal of tailings from its current location,
- the company to fully disclosure its intentions for possible future mining rights in the Jagersfontein area,
- economic support for local businesses impacted by the failure,
- an end to intimidation, victimization and attacks on community members by mine personnel, and
- the repair for all roads affected by the failure.
As community members have organized locally, civil society organizations have called on the South African government to investigate the causes of the failure and issue a full comprehensive report on the causes and impacts of the failure. Two years on, official technical reports are still forthcoming. Over the last couple of months, civil society organizations have engaged in a broad campaign with the government ministries, departments and agencies responsible for mining and mineral resources, like Water and Sanitation, the Police, and the National Prosecuting Authority, including the South African Human Rights Commission, to hasten the release of these reports.
The South African Civil Society (SA CSO) Tailings Working Group has learned that the Department of Water and Sanitation has commissioned a forensic report by academics from Wits and Pretoria Universities, which is still not public.”It is scandalous that, when close to two years have passed, the authorities have failed to publish the forensic report on the Jagersfontein disaster and all the recommendations [to avoid such disasters] have not been made public,” said Hassen Lorgat, convenor of the SA CSO Tailings Working Group. South African organizations are awaiting the report with anticipation because it is the first step in a process towards more transparency and then accountability, and because the lives and livelihoods of many people have been severely compromised.
The South African Human RIghts Commission (SAHRC), the national institution established to support constitutional democracy and charged with defending and protecting human rights, committed to an investigation on multiple occasions which they say is within their mandate. In an interview Thabang Kheswa, Free State provincial manager for the SAHRC, said there could be penalties for the loss of life, depending on what the investigation found. The investigation is a chance for meaningful outcomes because he South African Constitution regards both civic-political rights and socio-economic rights as enforceable in court.
However, the SA CSO Tailings Working Group has contacted the SAHRC multiple times to ascertain the status of their report and strongly suspects the lack of a public report indicates nothing has been done. The Working Group acknowledges that the SAHRC has had an increasing number of complaints regarding violations of human rights in a climate of austerity and a declining budget, making an investigation challenging. However they point out that alternatives were available, including convening hearings with organizations and the public, which could have gone a long way towards getting the power holders to resource these hearings and investigations.
All things considered, the inaction of the SAHRC is a dereliction of duty and itself is a violation of basic human rights. Almost all institutions, from the mining company to the government and the political parties in South Africa, have failed the people of Jagersfontein. Transparency and accountability are absent, and a consolidated report on all aspects of the disaster will be critical to shape whether rehabilitation will take place and under what circumstances.