Mob beats illegal miners, torch camps

UK – The 8. +ealth Security $gency 8.+S$ said on Friday there were ‘early signs’ that the monkeypox outbreak is plateauing across the country and that its expansion has slowed.

³:hile the most recent data suggests the growth of the outbreak has slowed, we cannot be complacent,´ Dr Meera Chand, director of clinical and emerging infections at 8.+S$, said.

There were 2 859 confirmed and highly probable cases of monkeypox in the 8. as of $ugust , with nearly 99 per cent of the cases among men, the country’s health authority said in a statement.

The recent analysis by the 8.+S$ showed that ³monkeypox continues to be transmitted primarily in interconnected sexual networks of gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men´, it added.

RISK

%ritish authorities in June were recommending gay and bisexual men at higher risk of exposure to monkeypox be offered a vaccine, as the outbreak of the viral disease had gathered pace, mostly in Europe.

,ndividuals at higher risk of coming into contact with monkeypox are being offered the smallpox vaccine, Dr Chand said. Earlier this month, the :orld +ealth Organisation declared monkeypox a ‘public health emergency of international concern’, its highest alert level.

KRUGERSDORP – The backlash against illegal miners in South $frica is gathering pace as local residents formed mobs to beat them and destroy their camps in retaliation to the gang rape of eight young women filming a music video last week.

Miners’ camps were torched and roads around the townships of Munsieville and %ekkersdal outside the town of .rugersdorp, west of Johannesburg, were barricaded with rocks and burning tires as residents protested against the presence of illegal miners.

Many of the miners are migrants from other $frican countries, and the reaction has raised concerns over xenophobia, with South $frican 3resident Cyril 5amaphosa on Friday condemning the violence.

ATTACKED

$round 8 men were arrested last week, mostly illegal miners, after eight women were raped up to times each on July 28, during the filming of a Gospel music video at a mine dump in the township of :est 9illage which was attacked by heavily-armed men. 3olice said they were investigating 2 counts of rape as well as robbery.

Local residents enraged at the incident torched illegal miners’ camps in the neighboring .agiso township on Thursday, and attacked miners whom they stripped naked and beat before handing them over to the police.