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.

A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners to allow emergency workers to gain access to a mine shaft where several hundred are believed to remain after the government cut off vital supplies.

The police have cut off food and water to miners for weeks in a bid to force them out of an abandoned mine. Human rights advocates and community leaders call the tactics inhumane.

South African authorities are embroiled in a standoff with an unconfirmed number of illegal miners who remain underground at an abandoned mine, apparently fearing arrest by police officers deployed at the site.

Estimated hundreds of illegal miners are still being trapped underground in South Africa's North West province after a court has ordered police to let them leave. For weeks, authorities had blocked supply lines of food and water to force the miners out.