South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday lives should not be put at risk in a standoff between police and hundreds of illegal miners stuck underground in a disused mine shaft and the miners should be recovered safely.

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,

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 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.

Several hundred people are believed to remain in an illegal mine in South Africa after the government cut off vital supplies and refused to help them, in a dramatic bid to crack down on the industry.

A court says emergency workers must be allowed to enter a mine where hundreds are thought to be without food and water.