The clampdown on illegal mining cut off food and water to hundreds of miners underground. At least 78 bodies were pulled from a mining shaft this week, and more are believed to remain underground.

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

Police say the death toll in a monthslong standoff between authorities and miners trapped while working illegally underground at an abandoned gold mine in South Africa has risen to at least 87.