A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners and allow emergency workers to gain access to a shaft where hundreds are believed to be holed up. The High Court in Pretoria,

South Africa's government says it will let thousands of illegal miners starve until they accept their fate and emerge from an abandoned shaft to face arrest.

Around the gaping shaft of a disused mine, the South African police on Saturday waited to pounce on anyone trying to escape to the surface. Their siege has gone on for weeks, trying to flush out hundreds of men accused of illegal mining in an abandoned gold mine,