By:Npr

Sleeping next to decomposing corpses and surviving on a foul mixture of toothpaste mixed with toilet paper.

That's how an unknown number of unauthorized miners — believed to be in the hundreds — have been surviving for weeks, possibly months, over a mile deep underground in a disused mine shaft in the South African town of Stilfontein.

In South Africa, workers at illegal gold mines like these are known as "zama-zamas," meaning "one who takes a chance" in the Zulu language.

Over the past several weeks, the zama-zamas at Stilfontein have been locked in a standoff with police, who surrounded the entrance to the mine shaft and blocked off their food supplies in an attempt — in the words of one cabinet minister — to "smoke them out."

Police say the miners are refusing to resurface because they fear arrest and, for many who are migrants from neighboring countries, deportation.

But a community leader in the area, Thembile Botman, says that even if the miners do want to come up, they can't without assistance, as their colleagues who usually remain above ground to pull the ropes that bring them up have been arrested. Now, those below are also starving and too weak.

"We sent a former zama-zama underground," Botman told NPR. "He found people are sleeping next to dead bodies. They don't have strength and they are ready to resurface."

"It was really saddening, they said they were eating Colgate, mixing it with vinegar and salt in the palm of their hand. Some would take toilet paper, mix it with toothpaste, and eat it," he added.

Rights groups outraged at the police's tactics went to court over the weekend, which ruled the police must allow food and supplies down the hole to keep the miners alive. The miners, some of whom are living with HIV/AIDS, have also asked for their antiretroviral drugs to be sent down.

Community members have been the only ones trying to bring the zama-zamas to the surface over the past two weeks, and Botman says 50 men pulling on a makeshift rope have brought up 12 people.